Today’s licensing is a huge turmoil for the outsider, with loads of different copyright laws and licensing methods available all over the web. If you are in search for some high-quality photos for your next blog theme, for your calendar (that you plan to give as a gift to your business partners) or any other design project on a tight budget, you need to look for sources that give you all the rights you need and the lowest possible price (free, that is). Here is a selection of sources where you can procure public domain images with a very high quality collected by professionals.
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Pixabay
This is a great resource for designers not just to procure free images, but also for photographers and graphic designers to share their work with the community. Designers can filter the images available through the portal by their category, orientation, color and transparency (for vector graphics, of course) and even explore the works of various photographers and sort the images by the camera used to take them. Most pictures are available with a Creative Commons Zero license – but you can always buy the portal a coffee as a tip.
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Unsplash
Unsplash is a service run by Crew, an advertising and creative agency in Montreal, Canada, which offers its subscribers 10 high resolution “do what you want” pictures taken by their network of collaborators every 10 days. All they need in return is for you to subscribe to their mailing list – and you will be informed of the new pack releases as soon as they appear. All images are original, have great quality, and you are free to use them the way you want.
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Little Visuals
Similar to Unsplash, Little Visuals also offers its users free images – 7 high-resolution pictures every seven days – in return for their email address (where you will only receive a notification about the new weekly pack’s availability). The images are also released under the Creative Commons Zero license, meaning that you can use them the way you want, for any project you need.
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Life of Pix
Another service similar to the two above, Life of Pix also provides its visitors with free high quality images with no restrictions at all. The images are donated to the public domain by the network of photographers working for the Leeroy advertising agency in Montreal. New pictures are added to the collection every two weeks or so.
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Dreamstime
Stock photos from Dreamstime are available as free downloads and are available in a variety of categories. Free images have no restrictions, but they also have way more than photos. For a small fee you can find original artwork, illustrations and more photographs as well.
Save yourself some time and money by visiting these great and free services, and it will leave you with more time for yourself.
Featured image credit: ShutterStock
