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What are royalty free images?
Royalty-free, or RF, refers to the right to use copyrighted material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use or per volume sold, or some time period of use or sales.
Note : Make sure to double check the license information while downloading from the sites given below. Their license policies may change over time. Respect the author’s work and credit the author every time you use the image !
25 Sites to Free Download High Resolution Stock Photos
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Unsplash
Unsplash offers super high resolution photographs which are free to be used in any ways. You will get 10 images every 10 days when you subscribe to them. This is my personal favorite and it is the most popular free stock photo provider. A special shout out for the unsplash community !
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LIFE
This google images websites has millions of historical photos. To search for these images include source:life in your google image search query. All of these images can be used for both personal and commercial use.
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Wikimedia Commons
They offers millions of photos that are categorized so that you can find one easily through a search. Download free stock photos from Wikimedia Commons.
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The British Library
There are over a million vintage photos uploaded to flickr by the national library of UK. Most of them are scanned ancient drawings. Copyright restrictions will be mentioned on every image if any. Give a visit to the British Library!
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Picjumbo
Download exceptional quality images in return for proper attribution. All images are tagged to make search convenient. Visit Picjumbo.
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Public Domain Archive
Images are organized in categories and are of very high quality. Check out Public Domain Archive for free stock photos
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Superfamous
A great website for high res images. All of them are categorized and you can use them under Creative common license that is you must provide credits for every use. Like the name suggests its super famous, so give a visit.
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New Old Stock
New Old Stock offers high quality vintage photos that are free of any copyright restrictions. Visit new old stock for fresh stock photos
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Stock Exchange
This is one of the biggest repositories of free images. You will need to sign to download the images. It is now a part of Getty images. Each image contains all the restriction details next to it. Visit Stock Exchange.
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Rumrot
They provide beautiful stock photos that can be used both for personal as well as commercial uses. Images are sorted and it makes it easy to find the one we are looking for. Check out rumrot for unrotten stock photos.
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Pixabay
Pixabay has a large collection of images that are under Creative Commons Public Domain deed CCO license. You can use their images for any purpose without giving any attribution unless you are told to.
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Getty Images
You might have heard of Getty images before however you may not know that they have a collection of free images too. You can embed these images to your site (ad-free now).
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Public Domain Photos
Public Domain Photos offers free high quality images which you can use for both personal as well as for commercial use even without attributing. All images are categorized.
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IM Free
They offer a good collection of photos that can be used for commercial uses. But most of the images are sourced from Flickr and may require attribution. Check out IM Free.
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Photopin
Photopin helps you find the photos on Flickr that are under Creative Commons License. You will get an embed code to avoid hosting to your own server.
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Kaboom Pics
There are over 550 high res images uploaded to this site by a Poland web designer. You can use these images even for commercial uses and that too without attribution(but prefers attribution). Visit Kaboom pics and grab your free copies of stock photos.
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Morgue File
You can use images for both personal and commercial use from a collection of over 300,000+ from this site. A built in cropping tool, hotlink being allowed and attribution free are some of the highlights of this site. Visit Morgue File.
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Magdeleine
Magdeleine has high quality images that are hand-picked and offers search based on mood,color,etc. Not all of the images are copyright free so double check before using any image. They offer search filters to find attribution required photos.
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Gratisography
Gratisography offer free high res images that can be used for both personal and commercial uses without any copyright restrictions. New photos are added weekly.
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Little Visuals
This site offers 7 high res photos every 7 days when you subscribe to their site. All of them can be used in any way you want. You can stay tuned by following them on twitter @little_visuals . Visit little visuals for better visuals.
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Life Of Pix
Life Of Pix offers free high res pictures with no copyright restrictions. New pictures are added every week.
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Getrefe
Free mobile photos for your personal or commercial needs. Visit Getrefe now.
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Snapographic
All of the photos are free of copyright restrictions and are categorized to help you find the one you are looking for. Visit Snapographic.
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Lock & Stock Photos
Lock & Stock offers good images but the lack of search features makes it difficult to find the one you are looking for.
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Snapwire Snap
You will get free photos every 7 days. They are under Public domain license and are free of copyright restrictions. Visit Snapwire Snap now.
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FancyCrave
FancyCrave is a site that offers a good collection of high quality stock photos mainly from travel destinations.
What is your favorite stock photo site? We would be happy to hear from you in the comments.
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