Sometimes, all you need to bring a website or blog post to life is the right photos. After all, pictures help to capture your customer’s attention, they give your site a way to stand out from the crowd, and they help to break up the text on your page, so it’s easier to read.
Unfortunately, unless you happen to have your own professional photographer or graphic artist on hand to create all the art you’ll ever need, you may have a hard time finding the pictures you need. To help you get your hands on the best royalty-free images, we’ve put together a list of our favourite websites for free stock photography.

1. Negative Space

Negative space is a fantastic stock photography site which loads up new images every week, so you’ll always be able to find fresh content for your site and blogs. The photos here are shared completely without copyright restrictions too, which means that you can use them however you see fit.

Whether you’re looking for a nature picture or an image of a stunning piece of architecture, you’re sure to find everything you need on Negative space. You can also filter your options by category and colour.

2. Pixabay

Pixabay is probably the largest website for free stock photos available today. Packed full of more than a million public domain images, Pixabay can deliver everything from vector graphics to illustrations, videos and more. Its selection of landscape photography is particularly compelling, and you should take a trip through the Editor’s choice section whenever you’re searching for inspiration.

When you find a picture that’s suitable for what you need, select an appropriate resolution and then all you’ll need to do is complete a Captcha to get your file.

3. Pexels

Anyone and everyone is free to upload stock photos to Pexels, which makes it a great place to go for the extra image content you need. The site’s curators pick the best shots to fill its searchable collection of public domain pictures, so you can search for something specific, or browse through specific filters.

Although there are some photos that might not be perfect for your website, you’re sure to find plenty of other images you can use.

4. PikWizard

PikWizard is an excellent resource for people who need natural-looking photos of people. The quality of the images on PikWizard is incredibly impressive, particularly when you consider that you’re getting all those photos for free.

One particularly compelling feature of PikWizard is its online photo-editor that allows you to adjust some of the images you choose without having to worry about leaving your browser. You might need to pay out for some of the premium tools and templates, however.

5. UnSplash

UnSplash is a free stock picture website that shares pictures from semi-professional and professional photographers. If you’re looking for the quality and resolution that you can only get from a pro, then you’ll love the selection on UnSplash. Of course, the quality of the images on this website means that there are fewer options to choose from than you would typically find on something like Pixabay.

For help finding the image that’s right for you, the UnSplash search tool is an easy-to-use function. However, if you need some inspiration, you can also browse through the “Collections” section too. UnSplash also gives you a way to credit the photographer you’re using in your work with a quick link.

6. Fancy Crave

Not only are the incredible images on Fancy Crave free of things like copyright and ownership, but they’re also high in quality too. You’ll have a hard time finding anything better from a professional photographer.

There aren’t many rules involved with using the images on Fancy Crave. However, the photographer does ask that you provide attribution when you can, and you never claim the photos as your own. Honestly, those are quite straightforward requests. Fancy Curve also uploads two new photos every day to help you keep finding new things.

7. Life of Pix

Finally, Life of Pix might be a small website for free stock photos, but it’s still worth checking out. The website comes to you from the Leeroy Advertising Agency in Montreal, along with a network of highly talented photographers. If you’re looking for high-res photos for your main website pages, then this could be the ideal place to check out. All of the images are donated, and they’re available for commercial and personal use.
If all that wasn’t exciting enough, Life of Pix also has a counterpart for when you need some free videos for your website too. Live of Vids is full of free footage videos, clips, loops, and gifs to use on your site however you want.