The appearance of a website can be greatly enhanced by quality photographs and images. Fortunately, there are a number of resources online that will help you to find quality photos to use on your website, and some are even free.
The following websites provide free stock photography:
Stock.Xchng
FreeImages.co.uk
FreePhotosBank
DreamsTime
YotoPhoto.com is a search engine dedicated to helping users find free photos.
However, free is not always the best option. Sometimes you can drastically increase the quality of the photography by paying as little as a dollar for a picture. The following websites offer very low cost stock photography:
Stock Xpert
I Stock Photo
Fotolia
DreamsTime
Big Stock Photo
If you are a designer that uses a lot of images, you can get a subscription at the following websites and download unlimited photos:
Shutterstock
Comstock.com
Ablestock
Jupiter Images
Photos.com
With the resources listed above you can give your website professional-quality images for very little cost, or even free.
July 16th, 2007
I’m surprised you didn’t mention two of my favorite stock imagery sites, istockphoto.com and luckyoliver.com. Istock offers free weekly images as well as some great video, Flash, and vector content for a reasonable price. Lucky Oliver is also an inexpensive option. Although they don’t have as many images, the search interface alone makes it a winner. A free stock site i use is morguefile.com. Again, not quite as robust as some, it’s a great place to start
July 16th, 2007
Anthony,
Thanks for the feedback. You’re right, istockphoto.com is a good resource as well. I think I’ll add that to the list. I’m not familiar with Lucky Oliver. Thanks again for visiting!
July 21st, 2007
[...] Stock Photography Resources [...]
November 28th, 2007
[...] 13. Quality of Images and Photos – It’s amazing how much impact a high-quality photo or graphic can have on a design. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources online for getting high-quality, low-cost photos, and some are even free. Searching for a good free picture may not be worth the time it takes when you can find one faster and pay $1 or $2. For a list of places to find photos online, see Stock Photography Resources. [...]
November 29th, 2007
[...] 13. Quality of Images and Photos – It’s amazing how much impact a high-quality photo or graphic can have on a design. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources online for getting high-quality, low-cost photos, and some are even free. Searching for a good free picture may not be worth the time it takes when you can find one faster and pay $1 or $2. For a list of places to find photos online, see Stock Photography Resources. [...]
November 29th, 2007
[...] 13. Quality of Images and Photos – It’s amazing how much impact a high-quality photo or graphic can have on a design. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources online for getting high-quality, low-cost photos, and some are even free. Searching for a good free picture may not be worth the time it takes when you can find one faster and pay $1 or $2. For a list of places to find photos online, see Stock Photography Resources. [...]
February 6th, 2008
Historical Stock Photos.com is a good place to get free pre-sized images for use in blogs, forums, mail, etc.
February 19th, 2008
[...] I need to use more graphics in posts. Free or cheap graphics are harder to find than I had expected. I really spent hours trying to find good graphics that were either free or cheap. At one point I had given up on the prospect of using graphics in posts here at TzuVelli. But, after reading Skellie’s "A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images" I have had much better success using Flickr. For low cost stock photography one of the best resources I have found is, "Stock Photography Resources." [...]
March 10th, 2008
I use shutter stock, so far it is pretty good!
March 18th, 2008
~ 3000 free pictures at http://freeFOTO.ca/. Creative Commons-licensed photos with keyword search. You can use the images free for websites and blogs with attribution.
September 17th, 2008
how about “real” agencies, not just those which rip off photographers?
December 1st, 2008
Stock images are no longer limited to strict photography. Our agency proposes royalty free 3d images and cliparts. These enable even more stunning designs.
February 8th, 2009
Wow, thanks for the resources. I bookmarked all of them. I am always looking for new sources of quality material to enhance my website. Thanks again.
March 5th, 2009
Good article. I’ve wrote an article about dutch stockphoto websites here:
Stockphoto websites
Regards,
Mark
April 16th, 2009
Nice list. Just a note that the best stock agencies for users (ideally great images for free) are not always the best stock agencies for photographers.
Erick
April 24th, 2009
I hadn’t ever heard of Yotophoto…thanks for the tip!
May 2nd, 2009
I (as many others do) contribute my pictures to Public Domain Pictures website you can see my portfolio on http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=87 All pictures are public domain, so you’re welcome to use them for any purpose completely for free
May 12th, 2009
Good list. I am using some of them sometimes.
From myself i may add co-photo.com as a resource with free images and designbeginshere.com as the one with a big list of similiar resources.