Best Sites for Free Hero Stockphoto Images

When I was creating the blog for Sea Otter Studios, I found that I needed to add some beautiful hero images to have the blog look fresh and modern. Therefore, I went to google to learn about where I can source these hero images. I learned that royalty-free does not mean free for use; it means that there are no ongoing licensing fees to maintain use of the images, but there are costs to access the services, access the image, and download the image. A truly free license is similar to the one provided by Pexels:

The license grants free use with modifications for commercial and personal purposes.

Unsplash

Unsplash is a widely popular library for photos and it started out as a Tumblr blog! I love Unsplash because the photos are great quality, there is a large library to search from, and their api provides a variety of sizing options. However, this site is a mixture of free and royalty-free images, so you may need to check a few before you find one that works for you.

Courtesy of Nour Tayeh @ Unsplash

Pexels

I have used Pexels throughout this site because they offer a strong library of high-quality images and free videos! See how you can use video overlays to spice up your site! I really enjoyed my experience with Pexels, but it should be noted that when your search term is too specific, the photos shown could be from iStock, which is a paid service.

Courtesy of Hatice Kesnik @ Pexels

Burst

Burst is a stock photo platform powered by Shopify with a mixture of licensed and free photos. The free photos are under the Creative Commons License. The photos on Burst are also of high quality, but I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for with my search terms, and their library felt a bit smaller than Pexels and Unsplash, leaving me with few choices.

Courtesy of Ryan Bruce @ Burst

Dupe

Dupe is a photo platform based on images from socials. Like socials, their search isn’t based on terms but rather, they have tags on the images called vibes. You search for the style and get a bunch of royalty-free social images to use, and their license provides complete non-exclusive use of their images. I have found the aesthetics of dupe to be more casual rather than editorial, which makes the use case more specific. The videos are nice for more of a short clip like in instagram, but I found their videos to be fairly low quality. Lastly, when downloading an image, they only provide a large 3000x1700 image, so you will need to edit the image to get a smaller size. I am going to keep Dupe in my back pocket, but it isn’t my go-to site for these hero images.

Courtesy of Emily Patnaude @ Dupe

Final Thoughts

There are many free high-quality images available to support blog sites, however, the nuances of each license should still be understood so that you don’t infringe on copyright. Both Pexels and Unsplash will be the resources that I rely on, but it is always good to have a couple more, like Burst and Dupe, in my back pocket for the instances where I can’t find what I am looking for. It is also fantastic to see that the libraries are diverse and not just a replication of the same images!