When I began the research for this article, I knew of only a handful of free stock photography sites. I set out to find as many good ones as I could, thinking maybe I’d find a dozen. I was quite surprised to find 25 good, solid resources out there. There are probably more, but these are the ones I found. If you’ve got a favorite and it’s not here, send it along.

Note the terms of use for each site. Some of these sites offer free images in addition to images for a fee. All of them are worth a look.

Keep in mind that “Royalty Free” does not mean the images are free; it means that you don’t need to pay the photographer a royalty each time you use the image. These sites offer free royalty-free images.

Stock.XCHNG is my favorite site for free stock photography. Searching and browsing is a breeze, and they even include a lightbox, which is a handy way to save images for later use.

This is a huge resource, currently indexing over 3 million photos! Every Stock is a search engine for free photos, and it searches many of the sites listed here. Search options allow you to specify license type. Highly recommended.

The photos on Imagebase are free to use, and are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Images are available in two high resolution (1600 x 1200 or 3072×2048) formats.

Morguefile is a completely free source for stock photos. Check the FAQ for their usage terms. The term “morgue file” is used by illustrators and others for a stockpile of images used for reference material. Nothing ghoulish about it!

Openphoto groups their completely free photos by categories, and offers a search function as well. Registration is only necessary if you’d like to upload photos.

Stockvault is a very classy, modern site with thousands of images and some Photoshop tutorials. Membership is free and unlocks some additional features, such as a lightbox. Definitely worth a look.

Unprofound is unusual in that photos are grouped by color, rather than category. There is also a search function. Registration is not necessary, but allows you to create a free online portfolio, and to contribute to the ever-growing collection.

Photo Rogue offers something unique: they take online requests for particular images. Their crew of photographers will actually go out and take your photo for you, for free. Not all requests are filled, but wow! What a concept!

Freerange requires registration before you can download. While there are no categories for browsing, there is a search function. They also invite you to make requests, as they have many images that aren’t online yet.

Geek Philosopher has many categories, and all the photos are free. There’s no registration. They request that you list a photo credit if you use a photo, but otherwise, there’s little restriction. In addition to photos, they offer backgrounds and wallpaper.

Cepolina is an international site, with photo descriptions in 17 languages, and the ability to browse photos using maps of the world, including specific European countries. You can also browse by category, and use a search function.

This site requires registration in order to enter the site, but once you’re in, you can upload or download, and participate in the forum, all for free. This is a very community-oriented site. Photos are grouped by category but there is no photo search function, that I could see. The forum software is a limitation here.

Woophy takes Cepolina’s map concept one step further: the home page is a giant map of the world! Every dot on the map represents photos taken at that location. This is a community for travel photographers, sharing their images with the world. Definitely worth a visit.

Photo Rack has a huge collection of over 27,000 images, nicely categorized. The categories are broken down into subcategories, but there is no search function. This is a place to browse, seeking that perfect image. No registration required. No ability to upload, but downloading is a breeze.

Freepixels has corporate-type images usually only found on pay-per-image sites. It has a search function, categories, and a tag cloud, so finding an image is easy. There are also some good abstract backgrounds here.

Design Packs is a small but nice collection of images, grouped into “packs” of 15 images. The images in each pack follow a common theme, such as Money, Flowers, or Lights. These images should appeal to designers and others looking for “abstract” images for backgrounds. Downloading 15 images as a zip file is a great time-saver.

Freefoto is made up of 117600 images with 153 sections organized into 3285 categories. There’s a search function, and usage is unrestricted. Just include an attribution link back to Freefoto.

Imageafter has 20,000 images available. There are two drop-downs (one for textures, one for images) that make it easy to browse the categories for each. Imageafter allows you to use their images on printed material for resale.

Pixel Perfect Digital has a small but growing collection of images. Registration allows you to upload to your own personal gallery. The search function allows you to search within one or more category.

Free Stock Photos is a small site containing good quality photographs in both low and high resolution versions. Photos are grouped into categories. The search function uses Google, which doesn’t work well for images here.

Free Digital Photos has a lot to offer, including a good search function, which is important when you’ve got this many images. Photos are grouped nicely into categories for easy browsing. Linkbacks are requested.

Public Domain Photos is just that: photographs in the public domain, arranged by category. There’s a good search function, as well. Includes a clip art section, as a bonus.

Nations Illustrated showcases pictures from around the world with over 7,000 photos in its collection. Browse by city, or country, or continent. Good search function, and a site-wide index.

Free Historical Stock Photos has lots of historical images, including many by Matthew Brady (Civil War) and Dorothea Lange (Great Depression). Includes paintings and vintage posters. Categorized, with a search function. Got retro?

Kave Wall is a great source of professional-quality close-up and macro photography. Need a great shot of paper clips or rubber bands? This is the place. Categorized and easy to browse. Not a lot here, but what’s here is first rate.

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