Databases for license-free images

If you’re looking for free images to use on your website, you can’t just help yourself to whichever pictures turn up first on a Google Images search. Many of the images that we encounter daily through these means are copyright protected and can’t be used without per­mis­sion or payment.

The cor­re­spond­ing terms of use for each image are dictated by the image license. So if you want to know what sort of license an image has without long, tedious research, you’re best off using one of the numerous image databases available online. Many of these platforms also offer free images, too – stock photos and graphics without a license, whose use is partially or even fully un­re­strict­ed.

Licenses define usage rights for a work – whether that work is an image, a piece of music, or a video. Misuse of works and a refusal to follow terms of use can have severe con­se­quences and should be avoided under all cir­cum­stances.

Free licenses offer public users some room to maneuver. An image published under the terms of a free license is known as ‘free’, or ‘license-free’. But the term ‘license-free image’ is a bit mis­lead­ing, because these images are still under license – just what’s known as a free license. But in everyday semantics, these images have simply come to be known as ‘free’.

The most commonly used free licenses are from Creative Commons (CC). This char­i­ta­ble or­ga­ni­za­tion offers seven different CC licenses: the ideal one to come across on an image search is the CC0 license, since it includes no re­stric­tions what­so­ev­er on usage. CC0 images may be used com­mer­cial­ly, edited partially or fully, and re­dis­trib­uted, even without crediting the original author. For more in­for­ma­tion on the different forms of CC license, please see our article on Creative Commons.

There are a number of image archives online that specif­i­cal­ly offer pictures with CC0 licenses. These aren’t just photos and il­lus­tra­tions: vector graphics and icons are included too, and these can be very useful in web design. The following is a list of the most popular platforms that offer CC0 images:

• Pixabay
  For some time now, the German platform Pixabay has enjoyed great pop­u­lar­i­ty – and with good reason, too: With over 650,000 CC0 images (com­pris­ing photos, il­lus­tra­tions, and vector graphics) spanning many different topics, users are spoiled for choice and can download any image for free. There’s also a helpful search function to aid you when trying to find suitable pictures.
• Pexels
  Pexels is a form of meta search engine for images, all of which are under CC0 licensing. You’ll find more than 5,000 photos to choose from.
• Unsplash
  Canadian website Unsplash has offered images with CC0 licenses for a long time – many of the photos available are beautiful snaps of land­scapes or ar­chi­tec­ture.
• Public Domain Vectors
  On Public Domain Vectors, you can find numerous vector graphics that are best suited to re­spon­sive web design.
• Grati­sog­ra­phy
  Grati­sog­ra­phy is the privately operated website of renowned pho­tog­ra­ph­er Ryan McGuire. Here, all his works are published and made available for free, high quality downloads.
• StockSnap
  Another site for general, CC0-licensed images, StockSnap offers several hundreds of photos and a handy search function to save you time.
• picjumbo
  Similarly to Grati­sog­ra­phy, picjumbo is a website created by pho­tog­ra­ph­er Viktor Hanacek, featuring all of his published works. The images are sorted by category and can be down­loaded for free.
• SKUAWK
  SKUAWK’s platform offers numerous images from a diverse range of cat­e­gories, including wildlife, objects, and tech­nol­o­gy.
• Split­Shire
  Italian pho­tog­ra­ph­er Daniel Nanescu is the brains behind Split­Shire. Here, he uploads all of his pho­tographs for free public use.
• Life of Pix
  Life of Pix is another photo blog with many artistic images. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it doesn’t currently feature a search function.
• Pickup Image
  Pickup Image features a large col­lec­tion of photos and diverse graphics. Their central focus is coun­try­side and city shots.

The image archives mentioned above dis­tin­guish them­selves as websites that mainly, or indeed ex­clu­sive­ly, offer free images with CC0 licenses. But even so, you should still take the time to check the exact license of every image before down­load­ing the data, so as to avoid any risks what­so­ev­er.

It’s es­pe­cial­ly important to pay attention to the image license if you are using an image database or archive that offers images under different licenses in addition to CC0-licensed material. In such instances, a website’s FAQs and terms of service can be useful. In some cases, it can be worth­while to look for photos and graphics with other licenses. The range of designs and options is much greater than those available under the CC0 license. The following sites offer photos and graphics with a wider range of free licenses:

• Creative Commons
  The search function of the Creative Commons or­ga­ni­za­tion is a meta search engine that sources images from other sites like Google, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, Pixabay, and more, based on suitable results. In general, the search function only displays free images with CC licenses, but the site does make it ex­plic­it­ly clear that images with other licenses may also appear in the results pages. So when you find an image you like, it’s rec­om­mend­ed to check the cor­re­spond­ing license agreement.
• Public Domain Pictures
  Public Domain Pictures also offers images with other licenses alongside CC0-licensed pictures.
• Free Stock Photos
  Some of the license-free images on Free Stock Photos are indeed free to download, but others are subject to a small charge.
• New Old Stock
  New Old Stock features numerous old pho­tographs (many from public archives) available for download, usually because the original licenses have expired. There are also many modern photos here, all shot in a tra­di­tion­al style with a vintage look.
• Su­per­fa­mous
  Dutch artist Folkert Groter set up Su­per­fa­mous to publish his extensive back catalogue of pho­tographs reg­is­tered under a CC-BY license online. This license type means you’re free to use his works for whatever purposes you like, so long as you credit him fully.

The pages listed above are just a few examples of the many sites that offer free images under free licenses online. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of free licenses has been in­creas­ing steadily in recent years, meaning new, royalty-free photos and their cor­re­spond­ing image database platforms continue to be added. Due to the diversity of CC licenses and their different re­stric­tions, not to mention the com­pli­ca­tion sur­round­ing the term ‘free’, it’s very important to make sure you check the licensing re­stric­tions and terms of use very carefully before using an image.

Sometimes, even licensing can be unclear – par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to the cir­cum­stances under which you may use an image com­mer­cial­ly. The Creative Commons website is a good source of in­for­ma­tion. This digital guide doesn’t con­sti­tute legal advice either.

It’s only possible to be 100% certain who the creator of an image found online is if you’ve created it yourself. Although some picture agencies and image databases seem to be more trust­wor­thy sources than others, be aware: if you’re using an un­fa­mil­iar image for your own purposes, you should always check all the details for the image. Re­gard­less of whether it’s a little photo blog, or a large stock image archive: mistakes are made time and again–even when adding an image to a database.

If you’re unsure of an image’s terms of use, then don’t use it. But as long as you obey the re­stric­tions in place when using an image, you can access a huge range of free photos, vectors, graphics, and il­lus­tra­tions on the internet.