As a web designer you probably know of peope that have either suggested or actually gone ahead and searched Google images for sites to use in their designs. There are a fair few sites out there that offer free images for commercial use. Unfortunately you can spend hours browsing sites, searching and looking, registering at sites only to find there is only a very limited number of images available for you to use or worse still they are all too poor quality to be of any use to a professional.

It must be one of the most common questions asked of me by young designers and developers that I mentor. So I thought I would write a short blog piece introducing you to some of my favorite resources. There is a couple of pretty definitive lists online so that is not what I am attempting to offer here. This is a collection of the best Royalty Free Stock Image libraries.

Colectively it represents hundreds of thousands of images so if you want to complete a project on the cheap it is likely you will find an image for the job within these links.

Stock.XCHNG
In the first instance there is Stock.XCHNG the leading FREE stock photo site
Huge gallery containing over 350,000 quality stock photos by more than 30,000 photographers.

http://www.sxc.hu

Creative Commons Search
This search helps you find photos, music, text, and other works whose authors make their artwork available for re-use.

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://www.freephotos.com/

DotGovWatch Photo Search
Copyright FRee Image Library Search. Using a specialised Google search, from this page you can search thousands of images that are in the public domain as they have been released by the US Government.

http://www.dotgovwatch.com/?/archives/8-The-Best-Copyright-Free-Photo-Libraries.html

Public Domain Clip Art
25,000+ clipart collection which is constantly growing
Pdclipart.com

Finally Creative
A small but good quality of stock images, concentrating on nature mostly.

http://finallycreative.com/gallery/

* http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/ – GIMP Archive: 32,000+ Royalty-free photos, organized by keyword.

Public Domain Depot
Not the biggest collection but when I am not finding what I am looking for elsewhere I will give this collection of Royalty Free, Copyright Free, Public Domain Images, Photos, Music and More.

http://pddepot.com/

http://www.public-domain-photos.com/
5000 Images mostly north america

http://www.openphoto.net/
Around 1000 images available

http://stockcache.com/Stockcache/Home.html
Good For backgrounds

http://www.photos8.com/
Only about 500 Images but all from one artist, extremely high quality and absolutely no restrictions

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/
Royalty Free STock Ohoto’s. Several thousand available variable quality

http://www.clker.com/
A massive clipart collection easy to search, navigate and use.

http://www.creatingonline.com/stock_photos/

http://pdphoto.org/ – Large collection of mostly public domain photos. Read the license for each picture before use; also, model releases may not have been obtained for all photos.

http://www.logodesignweb.com/stockphoto/
Small but growing public domain stock photos released by a single photographer.