If you are a web designer, a blogger or a webmaster, your life cannot be complete without royalty-free images. Essentially, with royalty-free rights, you are entitled to use the copyrighted material without the need to pay any royalties.
Below is the ultimate list of sites to find royalty free images online. Just a quick note here to say that you need to do your own due diligence when it comes to using these images. Some sites quite cleverly conceal paid images among the free ones and some use Google Adsense ads masked in such a way as to blur the line between what’s free and what’s paid for. Once you know what to look for you should be OK. Also, please be careful when the image contains people – check if a model release is required to use these images. Sometimes it is.
And finally, although these are generally free photos, as I have just mentioned there can be a few landmines in there so I can’t be held responsible for those.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
University of Washington Libraries
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – National Digital Library
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Got any more sites? Tell me about them in the comments below and I’ll add those to the list!
