15 Sites To Get Free Or Low Cost Stock Images

As a designer, you would have come across several photography sites that have such pricey display of photos that they fall far beyond the budget of a typical designer. However, there are enough places on the internet that offer you low cost or even free photos for your use.

Check out these 15 sites if you need free or low cost stock images:

Free Images:

1. Freerange Stock

This is run by a small team of professional photographers. They sharpen the color and image after each photo upload and are tagged by professional photographers with keywords. They have their focus on quality of pictures and therefore lack in quantity.

2. Morguefile

It consists of 9148 pages with 24 photos on each page and every photo has been found to be of a good resolution. It has been named so after the term that is used for a place to keep creative material after production. The site allows various filters which are handy. A photo from Morguefile needs to be credited to the photographer if possible.

3. Pixel Perfect Digital

This site with a small number of photos has very polished pictures that have been processed by professionals. Every photo comes with a short attractive story. You can either search for a photo or browse through categories to get what you want.

4. openphoto.net

Openphoto has been on the job of collecting free photos from as early as 1998. It is mainly used by people as a photoblog. It is extremely easy to search for what you want by keyword but you can also browse through categories.

5. Flickr

This largest online photo sharing site has an overwhelming number of amateur and professional photos. Recently purchased by Yahoo, this site had an admin team of 50 members. With the excellent tagging that this site does to pictures, it is a piece of cake to find what you have been looking for.

6. NASA

Yes you read it right, that is its name. It has been so named because all its photographs are space themed. The collection is however very large and professional. It has good keyword tagging and therefore is an easy to search site. It is an attractive place for people interested in space exploration and is also useful for web designers who want space themed shots and textures.

7. deviantART's Stock Images section

This website is very popular among traditional media artists to display their work. The site also has a big stock photos section. They have a huge assortment of gorgeous images with great image resolution that can be downloaded without having to register anywhere.

Image Licensed Under Attribution

8. Everystockphoto

This website has aggregated free stock photos from around the web and indexed them on itself. This offers you the facility of browsing through photos available on various sites from a single place. With their good filters and sorters, you stand a bright chance of getting what you want.

9. stock.xchng

This site is free for all and the advanced search may appear very basic if you compare it with a paid site. It features over 350,000 images that are quite well known ones, thereby making it difficult to get a unique photo. Apart from free stock photos, it also has free textures and flash movies.

10. Stockvault.net

It has more than 18,000 good quality images. The site has an appealing design and is easy to carry out a search on. Create a free account on it to unlock features like photo comments, organizational lightbox and other e-mailing options.

Low Cost Photos:

1. Fotolia

This website has a dedicated team of around 2 million professionals who provide access to more than 9 million photographs and illustrations. The images are sold as single downloads or as a part of a package subscribed to by the visitor. It does offer some free images as well. Registration is free and images cost as low as 75 cents onwards.

2. Dreamstime

A home to both free and paid royalty free images, dreamstime registers users to browse and download or buy images from them. Images are priced as low as 20 cents. This site has a number of photographers who offer their images for a donation which users can purchase using their credits offered by the site.

3. iStockphoto

This site is the pioneer in the field of stock photography which offers free membership and downloadable pictures either as a part of subscription or on iStock credits just as dreamstime. The credits that each image will consume when bought depend on complexity and size of the work. It has also collaborated with Thinkstock.com that allows users to search images on other stock photo sites as well.

4. iClipart:

This site distinguishes itself from other stock photo sites by providing a huge collection of clip art along with photos. It also has a flexible subscription ranging from $12.95 a week to $49.95 for a year. It features more than 7.8 million images that are available for individual downloads.

5. Bigstock:

This site is fast emerging as a competitor in the world of stock photo provider. It is home to over 5 million images and it's easy to use design makes it very simple for its users to purchase credits and buy photos.

Bernard Naylor

About the Author:

Bernard Naylor is an Online Manager for Maxwell Systems. Read his research on "Are Tech IPOs Worth Investing?".Bernard likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.