Free Images: Internet Sources for Royalty-Free Photos

You can find free royalty-free images on many websites. In order to be able to use images for your website or a print product, you need the appropriate image licenses - otherwise this can cost you dearly in court. We show reputable websites where you can get free and royalty-free images.

Free royalty-free photos at Pixabay

• Pixabay offers one of the largest and best photo databases with royalty-free images. Registration is only required for downloading in high resolution and free of charge. You can also download photos in lower resolution without registration.
• All photos at Pixabay are subject to the CC0 license. So you do not have to name the author or insert a link, and you can also edit and use the image commercially.
• Pixabay also lists many images from other databases, for example the photos from the Pexels site. This saves you having to search on different pages and you can search directly from Pixabay.

Piqs offers free photos and small community

• The Piqs website impresses with impressive pictures and also contains a small community that is at your side with tips, tricks and a forum.
• You have to register for Piqs.de briefly and receive 50, 000 credits. For every photo you download, up to 1, 000 credit points will be deducted. To get new points, you just have to upload a few pictures yourself, these will be rewarded with several thousand points.
• All images are royalty-free and can be used commercially. However, when using, you must provide the link and the name of the photographer, refer to the link "Some rights reserved" and link, and refer to the Piqs website "Source: www.piqs.de".

IMPORTANT: When using photos commercially, please note the exact license information provided by the website operator. The regional court in Cologne, for example, interpreted the copyright attribution required by the stock photo provider "pixelio.de" in its ruling of January 30, 2014 in such a way that the copyright notice and a backlink had to be placed on the author always and everywhere. This also includes the reference to the actual image file.

Royalty-Free Images from Unsplash and Re: Splashed

• All photos from Unsplash and Re: Splashed are also covered by the CC0 license, so they can be used without restrictions. Both platforms access the same database, but Re: Splashed offers a better search.
• The images have a very high resolution, but are often quite artistic.
• You do not have to register on both websites to download images.

Small photo databases

There are a number of photographers who make their pictures available on their own pages. The name of the photographer does not necessarily have to be mentioned.

• DesignersPics
• Life of Pix
• Cupcake
• ISO Republic
• Skitter Photo
• MMT.li
• Barn Images
• Split Shire
• Epicantus
• Gratisography

Free royalty-free photos on specific topics

• Everything about food: Foodies Feed
• Nature shots: Free Nature Stock
• Graffiti: UPICM.com
• Dark recordings: Darkworkx.de