Journalism

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

Bigfoto.com is a repository of photos whose main categories include America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Pacific. When you select a category, a menu with a list of subcategories appears below it; selecting a subcategory will take you a page with thumbnails and information about the topic. At the bottom of the Web site, you'll see a link called "pps," which contains PowerPoint presentations for downloading and admiring.

Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Pexels license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to discover through our discover pages.

Free images is a high quality resource of digital stock photographic images for use by all. All images in our collection are free to use on websites, printed materials and anywhere you need photos for illustration and design use.

Free Stock Photos is a collection of free photos available for use in personal and commercial design projects (see the terms of use for guidelines). Images come in multiple sizes for downloading.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net has just a few images - searching for "cat", say, returns only 13 photos - and only the relatively low resolution (around 640 x 480) versions are free. But they are free for use in commercial and non-commercial work as long as you don't claim them as your own, redistribute them, or offer them for sale. Browse photos by category or use the search tool. Each category has subcategories, which may even have subcategories of their own. The subcategory thumbnails display the title and the number of times the image has been viewed. Click the thumbnail to see a larger view.

FreeImage is an Open Source library project for developers who would like to support popular graphics image formats like PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF and others as needed by today's multimedia applications.

FreeMediaGoo has a collection of royalty-free images, audio, textures, and Flash animation available for commercial and private use (with some restrictions) free of charge. It is not necessary to credit the images you use. Images are sorted by category, including beach, aviation, buildings, finance, sports, foods, and others. You can find original and awe-inspiring digital images in the site's digital factory category.

FreePhotosBank grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use its images. Search or browse categories to find photos, or check out new or randomly selected photos featured on the home page. Click the Hot List button to see the most popular photos as well as photos with the highest ratings, most views, and most downloads. Some photos have an added digital effect, meaning you'll find a diverse array of photos on FreePhotosBank you might not find on other photo sites, and they’re better at abstract shots, backgrounds, and digital artwork, making this is a good place to start looking for those more unusual images.

The Freerange site search has an annoying habit of returning photos that have nothing to do with your keywords. But keep trying, and whether you're looking for animals or objects, people, places or arty, near abstract shots, you'll find a suitable high resolution shot here.

From Old Books is a unique collection of 800 images in the public domain (unless otherwise noted) scanned from books. The site has many pictures of castles, abbeys, and old houses. The home page displays new images and a search tool with various sorting options. When you find a photo of interest, click on it to see its title, source, the place it depicts (if applicable), keywords, copyright status, file name, and notes. Each photo also comes in several dimensions, and you can download by simply clicking on the size you want.

Geek Philosopher offers a collection of photos, backgrounds, and wallpaper organized into nine main categories, each with additional subcategories. If you use an image, the site requires you to include a link to Geek Philosopher. According to the site, you are free to do whatever you want with these photos except redistribute them. (Learn more by checking out the site's terms and conditions.)

Getty Images is a leading provider of digital media worldwide, creating and distributing a range of assets – from royalty-free stock photography and editorial images to video, music and multimedia – that help communicators around the globe tell their stories.

Download and use any image or "texture" — close-ups of elements such as fur, food, and fabrics, and more —to use in personal or commercial work (see the site's terms of use for licensing information). A series of drop-down menus let you browse images and textures by category; you can also look for images via a search feature. Image*After's clipping tool is a nice feature; click the scissors icon to "clip" a photo; when you're done clipping, you can review all of your clipped images in one page by clicking on the bigger scissors icon next to the die icon. Image*After’s more abstract efforts - everything from electronic components to brick walls and artistic blurs - are much more compelling than the stock images, especially if you're looking for an unusual background image.

ImageBase is a collection of over a few hundred photos of nature, people, cities, and objects taken by (presumably) one photographer, David Niblack. Though a small database in comparison to others, you can expect to find quality photos here. The site clearly states that "all images are 100 percent free to use." Click on one of the categories to view thumbnails; after clicking on a thumbnail, the full image appears on the right. If you click on the full image, it takes you to the next image in that category.

Mayang's Free Textures is a library of over 3,000 textures from architecture, buildings, fabric, man-made items, metal, nature, plants, stone, and wood. Images are high resolution at 1600x1200 pixels or larger, with most at 2560x1920 pixels. All images are free for all uses, but can't be sold; crediting the site is also appreciated. Downloads are limited to 20 textures per day. Not all images look like background pictures, especially the autos collection, so don't let the term "texture" throw you off. The aerial view of Paris and other locales are amazing.

Clip art, photos, and animations

MorgueFile contains free, high-resolution digital stock photographs and reference images for corporate or public use. MorgueFile's archive contains over 55,000 digital images, which can be searched and accessed through a broad set of well-organized categories, including categories, keywords, size, rating, even color, all via a simple, quick interface. While some may find the MorgueFile thumbnails too small, two features compensate for this: the fast-displaying search results and the photo quality. This site's best feature is its excellent search tool.

National Park Service has about 13,000 images available in the public domain for use, free of charge as long as you credit the photo as "NPS Photo" or "NPS Photo by (photographer's name)." The photos are specifically related to Yellowstone National Park, with categories including animals, fire, geology, park structures, special events, and more. The Park Services plans to continue scanning and posting more images.

The Open Photo Project is a stock photography community and framework whose purpose is to allow photographers to share and protect their works through Creative Commons licensing. Mousing over the thumbnails allows you to view each photo's licensing information. The site uses a wiki to manage its collection; you must register in order to contribute to the site or access other features. Click the Spy tab at the top of the home page to see what photos other users are admiring, or find pictures by category or using the search tool. They're neatly arranged into well-chosen categories, and clicking any of these leads on to a thumbnail gallery of related shots.

PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public-domain photos. It contains about 2,000 photographs — most of them by the same photographer — organized by category. Unless an image is clearly marked as copyrighted, you can assume it is free to use. Pictures featuring products or property should also be used with care. The home page links to the newest photos, the site author's favorite photos, the most-viewed photos, and recent comments from the site's forum, which resembles a guest book.

Photocase images may be used for commercial and noncommercial self-contained original work. You can download up to three photos per day; if you need to download more, the site requires buying download credits. You can also get five download credits for every picture you upload. Photocase also has a magazine with articles, short stories, and a photo contest. To download photos, you must register (which is free); registering allows you to join the Photocase community, upload photos, and personalize your account.

Includes a 100,000 image collection of high-quality photos taken by amateur photographers from around the world. Stock XChng images are searchable in multiple ways, and offer thumbnail views large enough to provide a good preview of what the shots contain. Photographers establish the use terms, and most images are available for immediate reuse.

Stockvault is a stock photography resource that offers medium-sized images for personal and non-commercial use. The site features images from various photographers, both professional and amateur, and offers an impressive array of awe-inspiring shots, as well as logo templates, clip arts, textures and backgrounds. To view the photos, go to the Stockgallery, where you can browse over 2,300 images by category.

Unprofound.com is a collection of photos sorted by basic colors instead of the usual categories. White, however, isn't white, but rather is found under the "everything else" category. The home page explains the terms of use: you can use images any way you like, but don't redistribute them. This site has some great photos, with no significant restrictions on their use. You don't have to register to download images, and Unprofound is strictly non-profit, so you won't be hassled by the usual collection of annoying ads.

Visipix is an art museum, clip art, and photo gallery with around 100,000 exhibits. If you publish a Visipix photo, the site requires that you credit the authors and Visipix near the photo. All images are free, but can't be used in the sex industry or to promote the sale of tobacco or alcohol. The Clips section contains clip art, but most samples are photos rather than flat images. Be aware that it's not always clear which images are copyrighted and which aren't.

Ask.com Picture Search is a search engine that locates images by keyword. Its advanced search feature lets you conduct more detailed searches by selecting words to include or exclude, language, domain or site, geographical area, and date modified. You can save these settings or restore default settings. Picture Search's copyright disclaimer clearly states that search results are protected by copyright and trademark laws; whether or not you can use the pictures depends on the rules of the site where you find them.
Every image found by Picture Search appears with two links: Info and Save. Info provides the file name, URL, and the page where the image lives; Save stores the images on a page where you can refer to them later. Once you've saved images, click the My Saved Results button at the top of the thumbnails page. There, you can move images to another folder, delete them, print them, or email them. Saved images can be sorted by date or title.

The Creative Commons search engine locates content on the Web that has been published under a Creative Commons license. Still in its beta stage, CC Search doesn't yet offer thumbnails of the photos it finds; however, as soon as it is able to display more visual data on its search results, this will become a popular destination for finding a rich selection of free images.

Flickr is an easy-to-use online application that has super features and a worldwide community of contributors. Flickr is more of a repository of personal shots and individual home photo collections than a public repository of images to be shared and reused. Flickr is free; registration is only required if you want to upload, edit, and tag your own digital images. Those who publish images on Flickr can select and specify the image's licensing terms — from all rights reserved to any of the Creative Commons licenses. Before downloading a photo, read its permissions carefully. Not everyone allows their photos to be used commercially, so visit the Advanced Search Page, then check "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content" and any other license-related options you need before you begin. And when you find a photo you like, check on the right-hand side for a link like "Some rights reserved," and click it for details on what you can - and can't - do with the shot.

Google offers a separate search engine for images only. Because they come from all over the Internet, these images may not be free (chances are, they aren't). Nonetheless, Google Image Search can still be a useful way to locate hard-to-find images. To conduct a search, enter the keyword of the image you're trying to find (the fewer words, the better). If you get too many results or want something more specific, add another word. For specific searches, you can also use the advanced search tool, which allows you to add additional filters to your search. You can also limit your search to images of a specific size, a specific format, and even a specific color. Once you find an image, check the source for its licensing information.

MSN Live Search allows you to search for images by keyword and to sort results by size and color. Under Options, you can change display and filter options, including language and location.

Picsearch uses its own technology to crawl the Web and index images. If you find an image through Picsearch, check the site's licensing terms or contact the copyright holder to see if you have permission to use it. (Picsearch also provides information on how you can prevent your pictures from appearing in its search results.) The Help button explains how to search and improve your results, while Preferences allows you to change the interface language. Advanced search options let you search for animation or to sort images by color or size. Additionally, the results page will suggest relevant keywords to help you narrow down or broaden your results. Results are displayed as thumbnails, and come with the image's size, source, and other information.

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia available in a variety of languages. While its search tool's main purpose is to find entries containing the entered keywords, most Wikipedia entries also include an image. Some photos displayed on Wikipedia are in the public domain and are available for reuse. Click on an image to find out its copyright status.

Yahoo Search allows you to search for images, including clip art. Its Advanced Image Search tool allows you to search for specific results, including the top-level domain (.com, .edu, .net and so on). Yahoo Search also allows you to manage your display preferences, including language and layout and to search for multimedia.Yahoo Search also has a feature that allows you to search it for images — though they are likely to be copyrighted.

Yotophoto searches multiple photo collection sites for free images. It may be a good starting point when you're looking for something specific. (For example, the tool found 351 images for the word apple.) Enter a keyword into the search box and the results display thumbnails along with copyright information, size, and source; a new feature even allows you to search images by color.