Amazing Stock Images Without The Price Tag

by Shannon Leigh · 3rd Apr 2018

By Bethany Morris

Collating appropriate stock photos for your social media accounts and blogs can be very challenging and confusing.

Is attribution required? What is a CC0 license? Is your image royalty free?

There are many websites that charge you a fee for images, such as Shutterstock and if you have little or no budget, then these charges can be very costly, especially for just a few images. However, when you are paying for them, your rights in which you are able to use the image are clearly outlined and you know that you are legally allowed to use that image for anything you want, without infringing on anyone’s copyright.

Opening an account and paying for a plan which allows you to download a certain number of images per month is usually the easiest option but not always the cheapest.

Opting for the free route is probably the best for those with small businesses or who are frequent bloggers, who may not have a huge budget to spend on accompanying stock images for their content. However, free websites can sometimes be confusing as it is not always clear on how to use the images (if attribution is required) etc and there are a few different copyright categories.

If you are not familiar with these categories, here is an overview.

Royalty Free: This is offered by paid-for stock image websites. This simply means that the purchaser pays a fee and can then use the image without paying additional royalties or licensing fees. This also means the purchaser doesn’t have to give attribution (a link to where the image was sourced/the owner).

Public Domain: These are images whose copyrights have expired or whose creators have waived all rights to the images. This now means that images are free for personal and/or commercial use. However, there is one exception to this. If you’re using an image of a person, you may need to get his or her permission to use the photo. Some sites with these kinds of photos will already have obtained a model release, so if you’re unsure, get in touch with the person who has posted the image.

Creative Commons: Photographers who license their images under Creative Commons (CC) can choose how their images will be used by specifying a particular CC license. For instance, a CC0 license means the owner has waived all rights to his or her works, while CC 2.0 requires the user to provide attribution. CC0 is the most flexible license as this means you are able to use the images for absolutely anything and edit them without providing credit to the owner.

7 of the best, free stock image websites with no attribution required:

www.pixabay.com
A huge stock database of public domain images.
www.pexels.com
Free to use under the CC0 license.
www.unsplash.com
10 new high-quality photos released every 10 days, released under the CC0 license.
www.foodiesfeed.com
CC0 license means these are free to use with no attribution, however images may not be resold.
www.stocksnap.io
All images are free to use under the CC0 license.
www.goodfreephotos.com
Public domain images taken by the owner of the website.
www.deathtothestockphoto.com Sign up and recieve free images for commercial use, delivered monthly to your inbox. You do not have the right to claim these photos as your own.