Looking for some great images to display in a newsletter, blog or website? Here are some guidelines for choosing the best photos.

  • Download free images from a website that offers royalty-free photos and illustrations.
  • Purchase a stock photo for a one-time fee or sign up for a monthly plan.
  • Look through your photos and select images that might be a fit.

COPYRIGHT

When selecting free images look for photos that do not have a copyright. Why do we need to respect the copyright of an image?

  • If you use a photo that is copyrighted you might get charged a fee by the company that owns it.
  • Stock photo companies track their photos and alert users who are using their photos without permission. They will send a letter asking to you to pay a penalty.
  • Do yourself a favor and avoid this issue by selecting royalty-free images or purchase the stock image upfront.

I have a collection of royalty free images on my Flickr page that span a range of topics from travel to people to computers. Here is the link to Sue Seecof’s Photo Collection. Please review the images and download the ones you like. They are all free of copyright.

STOCK PHOTOS

Here is a link to a few of the many stock photo sites available. Search for an image by name or topic, such as “cityscape” or “nature” and view the results. The fees for a stock photo range in cost, so click on the picture to review the price.

iStock Photo

Adobe Stock – Check out their monthly subscription plan.

Dreamstime

Canva – They have stock photos and free design tools that are easy to use. You can draft a business card, flyer or newsletter and download the pdf or have them print it for you.

FREE PHOTOS

Here are some websites that offer free images.

NOTE: Free websites may have “advertisements” for stock photos in the sidebars. Sometimes it is hard to tell if an image is free or a stock photo. If you click on an ad that requires a payment, just go back to the free image site and look for the no cost images.

Picabay

Beautiful free images and videos.

Foto

Premium royalty-free stock photos from the Foter Community.

Pexels

Free stock photos you can use for personal and commercial use.

UnSplash

Easy to use website with beautiful free images.

Dreamstime

Affordable stock images; just register an account. They also offer free images.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

They offer both free and paid images. You can download a small image for free if you credit their website.

ADigitalDreamer.com
This website has a great selection of images organized under categories.

AlegriPhotos

The images are artistic and might be useful in designing a web page or newsletter. You can download free images from this website with the click of a button.

Big Foto

Beautiful travel images. You can download them as long as you credit Big Foto for the photo.

Free Pic

Epicantus

Photographer Darius offers professional photos, that are artistic and unique.

New Old Photos – Archive of vintage photos

Splitshire

PicJumbo

IMCreator

Morguefile

FreeImages

Picography

GetRefe

JayMantri

Cupcake

Gratisography

StockSnap

Startup Stock Photos

SplitShare

Life of Pix

RawPixel

Burst