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Find Royalty-Free Images and Multimedia
Way back in the day, when small-business folks like me needed a nice image for our blogs, marketing or other stuff, we were forced to either, umm, “borrow” an image we found on the web (which was often low-resolution, thus bad for printing) or pony up hundreds for royalty-free stock photography from high-end sites such as Getty Images.
But nowadays, there’s no end to the number of so-called microstock sites—online marketplaces where freelance photographers and multimedia artists, both amateur and professional, sell their images for a fraction of the cost at the high-end sites. We’re also fortunate that talented artists and image curators offer many royalty-free images for the best price of… free.
Here are some of my favorite free sites… followed by some paid ones I love. (I buy all of mine for my presentations, and I’m currently obsessed with nerdy animals wearing glasses.)
The best one
Everypixel
Multi-Site Image Search Engine
One of the frustrations with finding the perfect image is that you have to search on approximately a thousand sites. Everypixel solves that problem for you by aggregating both free and paid microstock sites into one search engine. When an image is on multiple sites, Everypixel gives you prices so you can find the best bargain. #savemoney #savetime… #win!
Also check out another multi-source image site:
Pexels
Curates Photos from Many Free Sites
NEW for 2019
- Check out this post about the Internet Archives.
- This site is my new favorite for low-cost graphics, videos, templates and more.
- The community members (you guys) suggested these resources.
- This site is crazy awesome for stock images. You get to choose your models/poses then add props and backgrounds of your choice… make your own perfect image!
Free Sites
Death to the Stock Photo
Photos Sent Via Email
FindA.Photo
Photo Site with Handy Color Search
Hubspot
Common Stock Photo Themes
HubSpot offers lots of freebies as long as you give them your email address (use these if you don’t want to).
Life of Vids
Royalty-Free Videos, Clips and Loops
Negative Space
High-Res Photos with No Restrictions
New Old Stock
Vintage Photos from Public Archives
Pixabay
Photos, Vectors and Video
StockSnap
Image Site with Robust Search Engine
Unsplash
Curated Photos with Email Subscription
Videvo
Video Clips and Stock Footage
Paid Sites
123RF
My Favorite Microstock Site
Adobe Stock
Subscription-Based Microstock Site that Integrates into Adobe Products
Dreamstime
Reasonably Priced Photos
Pixelsquid
3D Images
iStockphoto
Getty’s Microstock Image Site
Shutterstock
Another Microstock Site
Stockfresh
Cheap Microstock Site
VectorStock
Vectors and Illustrations with Some Free Images