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.
DesignerPics.com is developed by Jeshu John, a web designer and developer based in Kochi, Southern India. Users can search by keywords or browse by categories.
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.
Pixabay is a photo community that provides images on public domain. The site contains curated images contributed by photographers around the world. As of September 2015, there are more than 470,000 photographs, vectors and illustrations. Users can search by keywords or browse by various categories.
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.
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.
Developed by The Open Knowledge Foundation, The Public Domain Review is “an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to promoting and celebrating the public domain in all its richness and variety”, as according to the website. Images in their collections are derived from a wide range of online archives, that are on public domain. The images are arranged by topics, where users can search or browse by time, style, genre, type, content and rights.
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.
Wellcome Images is one of the visual collections of the Wellcome Library. It contains themes ranging “from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and science”. To date, there are close to 130,000 images across different themes.
The NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 800,000 images digitized from the library’s collections, which spans across different mediums, subjects and time periods. The collections include illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs. The collections can also be browse through different categories – Arts & Literature, Cities & Buildings, Culture & Society, History & Geography, Industry & Technology, Nature & Science, and Printing & Graphics.
Compiled by Swiss UI designer, Vilem Ries, Albumarium offers high-resolution photographs, organised in different albums. Photographs on this site are contributed by users on Creative Common licenses.
Developed by Michael Connors in 1996, MorgueFile is an online community for photographers and remains as a popular image source for creatives. It is currently managed together by Michael and his brother, Kevin Connors, and Johannes Seemann. This platform contains photographs “freely contributed by many artists to be used in creative projects by visitors to the site“.
Getty Images is one of the world’s leading suppliers for stock images. Through their embed tool, users can drop an image into their blog, website or social media feed without worrying about copyright restrictions. The tool will generate a code that will automatically include the necessary attribution and link back to the licensing page.
Unsplash is a collection of high-resolution stock images by Canada-based design agency, Crew. 10 new photographs are uploaded every 10 days.
Funded by the Duke Endowment “Library 2000” Fund, Ad*Access is a project that presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. The images provide a perspective of major campaigns and companies in 5 main areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.
