Free is good. Here are a few thoughts on where to obtain free high-quality, high-resolution stock images and artwork.
Freerange Stock is an advertising-supported site that encourages photographers to upload their content, and ad revenue is shared with the photographers.
Flickr is the granddaddy of all photo-sharing sites. The site contains millions of images, ranging from really bad to really good. If you need an image for a commercial project, limit your search to images with a Creative Commons license. Instead of using Flickr's slow, cumbersome search engine, try Compfight, a blazingly fast search engine for Flickr images.
Shutterstock* claims to be the "largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world." They offer a new "Free Photo of the Week" and "Free Vector of the Week" every week on their front page.
Crestock* has a large collection of both photography and vector images that cost from $5-$15 each. They also offer a new photo or vector image free to download every day.
morgueFile is another popular collection of user-submitted photography with a clear license and a good variety of images.
* Full disclosure: I'm an affiliate of Shutterstock and Crestock. This means that if you visit either site from here, and eventually buy something, I might make a few bucks.
There's also stock.xchng http://www.sxc.hu/ .
ReplyDeleteThe remark about Flickr and free will cause you a lot of headache in the Flickr community. Flickr images by default are "All rights protected" and therefore NOT FREE.
ReplyDeleteAdrian, you're right that the rights of individual image owners on Flickr do indeed need to be respected. But the point I was trying to make in the original post was to look for images with the Creative Commons license http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/. I've edited the original post to hopefully make this more clear.
ReplyDeleteHere's a good one i use. www.photoxpress.com
ReplyDelete