Tookapic was launched as a platform to help users to “develop a habit of daily photo taking in a fun and addictive way”. The habit is gamified where users will be awarded with points and badges. Users are also able to share their images for reuse. The stock photos section of the website presents the pictures shared by the community. As of November 2015, there are more than 14,000 stock photos uploaded with 66% free for download. Users can search or browse by different categories.
Wikimedia Commons is a “media file repository” of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content, including images, sounds and video clips. Launched on 7 September 2004 by the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Commons uses the “wiki-technology” that is the same technology used in Wikipedia. Wikmedia Commons also aggregates files from other projects, including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikisource, and Wikinews. As of October 2015, there are more than 28.7 million files in more than 120,000 collections. Users can conduct a keyword search or browse the content by topic, type, author, location, license and source.
Divvy Pixel curates public domain images from various sources. Images provided on their main site and online galleries are on public domain and can be used personally or commercially. Users can browse and download the images individually or all at once.
Picjumbo is developed by photographer, Viktor Hanacek. Users can search by keywords or browse by different categories.
Photogen provides free high-resolution photographs for download and reuse. Users can search by keywords or browse by categories.
Developed by Brooklyn-based interface and experience designer, Jeffrey Betts, MMT is a site that contains high-resolution photos on public domain. Users can search by keyword or browse by different categories.
Raumrot.com presents “free, handpicked stockphotos” for commercial and personal uses. As of July 2015, there are 681 of such images. Users can browse by categories or by special image sets.
Lock & Stock Photos provides photographs taken by social media marketeer, AJ Montpetit.
Developed by Italian photographer and graphic designer, Daniel Nanescu, Split Shire provides copyright-free photographs for designers, bloggers, social marketeers and commercial companies. Users can search or browse images by categories.
Founded by a startup based in Switzerland, PLiXS is a database of free high resolution images. As of August 2015, there are close to 3,400 images, contributed by photographers around the world. Users can search or filter their search by photo filters and categories.
Skitterphoto provides photographs that are taken by three photographers based in Groningen, The Netherlands. Since the platform launched in 2014, a photo is uploaded every single day. Users can search or browse by categories.
From vectors to PSD files, icons and stock photos, Freepik provides resources for graphic and web design. As of August 2015, the site has received more than 440 million downloads. Developed by “a team of designers, developers, professionals of marketing, communication and administration” based in Spain, Freepik offers two types of content: free and exclusive graphic resources by Freepik, and graphic resources belonging to others. Users can search or browse by categories.
ISO Republic provides exclusive stock images for creatives. It is founded in 2014 by English photographer and designer, Tom Eversley. The mission is to “provide high-quality images to be used by designers, developers, bloggers, marketers and social media teams”.
Epicantus provides images that are captured by visual and UX designer, Daria Nepriakhina and other photographers.
Developed by German web developers, Pexels provided handpicked stock photos from free image sources, such as Unsplash and Gratisography. To date, there are over 3,000 images that are on Creative Commons zero (CC0) license. Users can search or browse the images.
StockSnap contains curated images by Marc Chouinard and Christopher Gimmer. The images are from around the web and photographers from their network. Users can search or browse by date, trending, number of views, number of downloads and number of favourites.
Provided by web design agency, IM Creator Ltd., IM Free Collections is “a curated collection of free web design resources”. The images are from various image sources that provided these images on Creative Commons licenses. Users can search or browse by various categories.
Life of Pix offers high-resolution photographs with no copyright restrictions. The photographs were contributed by Montreal-based Leeroy Advertising Agency and its network of photographers. To date, the site contains close to 600 images. Life of Pix also has a sister site, Life of Vids, that provides access to public domain videos.
VADS is an “online resource for visual arts”. Over 12 years, VADS built a portfolio of visual art collections, which comprise of “over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK”. These collections were contributed by various institutions in the UK. Through the site, users can search or browse by collections and themes. VADS also provides a series of resources that were built around the image collections by “specialist authors and lecturers”.
Gratisography contains high-resolution pictures that were photographed by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design. New pictures are added on a weekly basis.
