30+ Free CC0 Licensed Images Sources

Including high-quality photos on your website can increase user engagement. But, with the right Public domain photos for your website, you can be a better marketing approach.

There is a higher impact on viewership, as well as on your audience’s attention. Although, as per a poll conducted in 2018, more than half of web designers use free public domain photos in their works, you must use CC0 Licensed Images for a better user experience.

If you’re new to design and need to hire a photographer for your photos, this could be costly. But, some websites offer free CC0 texture and CC0 licenses. These graphics enhance the user experience on your website and ensure that you get the attention you deserve.

You’re well aware that a website’s user experience is crucial as a designer. As a result, you must ensure fast upload speed and stunning photographs. In addition, it’s essential to know where to find high-quality photos with permission to use them.

Designers enjoy the availability of public domain photos combined with the CC0 license. As a result, you can save money while developing a website and increasing traffic and visibility.

Here we’ll discuss some sources to get free public domain and CC0 License photos.

What Are the Benefits of Using Free Public Domain or CC0-Licensed Images?

Copyright protects all photos on the internet. Even if the copyright isn’t stated, you should assume it exists. It is also prohibited to use these photographs without permission.

While stock picture services such as ShutterStock offer high-quality, royalty-free images. But, not everyone has the financial means to buy licensed photographs and images—this happens when public domain photos and the CC0 license come in handy.

The phrase “public domain” refers to works that have expired their licenses or that have been explicitly distributed with no restrictions on their use.

CC0 Licensed Images are free-to-use images. It permits copyright holders to distribute their works without any restrictions. Anyone can use images in the public domain or under the CC0 License for any purpose. You can use these photos in your:

• Blog articles
• Featured images
• Sliders
• Image galleries
• Backdrops

Before Using Any Free Images, Be Sure You Understand These Terms.

Before we begin, there are a few things to keep in mind as we talk about free image sources. First, examine the terms and conditions of each website you visit, as this will help you determine if and how much attribution is necessary.

What is the Creative Commons license?

It is a non-profit organization that provides legal tools for free as it promotes the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge. There are a variety of Creative Commons licenses available. They range from permitting any usage with no attribution to only allowing specific uses and no alterations.

What exactly is the public domain?

The public domain includes works whose copyrights have expired, surrendered, or are no longer valid. Therefore, finding things on the internet does not mean that it is available for the general public.

What do royalty-free images mean?

Royalty-free images aren’t always free. To get the rights to use the image, you’ll usually have to pay a one-time price. You can then use it as many times as you like. The term “royalty-free” indicates that you are not required to pay the image’s owner royalties to use it.

Why Isn’t Creative Commons 2.0 Compatible With GPL?

Compatibility means that a person can now work under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Also, they must share modifications of that work under the GPLv3 license. But, this compatibility is one-way only. It is because you can’t use CC BY-SA 4.0 to release adaptations of GPLv3-covered works.

You cannot sublicense the CC-BY-SA license; hence you cannot distribute it in a GPL-compliant work. As a result, it is incompatible with a GPL-compliant work-as-a-whole. If you want to use images in a GPL-licensed project, you’ll need to choose from a list of compatible licenses.

CC0 is the sole Creative Commons license that is compatible with the GPL. As per the GNU licensing classifications, these have designated CC0 as a public domain dedication. Therefore, to the entire degree permissible by law, a work distributed under CC0 is dedicated to the public domain. If it isn’t possible for some reason, CC0 offers a more permissive, lenient license as a backup. The GNU GPL is compatible with two public domain works and the CC0 lax license.

Now, let’s look at some of the best sources for free public domain or CC0-Licensed photos.

Free Public Domain and CC0 Licensed Images Sources

1. Pexels

Pexels is an extensive and well-organized collection of public domain images. You can explore photographs by category or search for specific images. All the photographs on Pexels are free to use and do not need attribution.

Millions of people worldwide rely on our community of photographers for new, original, and diverse imagery, from small businesses to organizations, marketers to designers.

The good thing about Pexels is that they supply high-quality photographs and many stock images that we may utilize with no problems in the future. This is the best feature of pexels.

2. Unsplash

If you’re a designer seeking stock photographs for your projects, you can find thousands of high-resolution images here. You will undoubtedly enjoy Unsplash. The best feature of Unsplash is the limitless picture library.

Unsplash’s high-resolution image gallery is available to everyone, and it can help a lot with design work. In addition, they provide a better filtering tool and are one of the most significant and largest stock image collections I’ve seen.

3. Negative Space

It is a stunning collection of CC0 Licensed Images for bloggers, artists, and small companies, which offers a simple search function and allows you to view photographs by tags and colors.

Negative Space is all about forming communities, a group of photographers who wish to share their work. And a community of web visitors who wish to utilize their gorgeous, free high-resolution photographs without limitations.

4. Public Domain Pictures

You can find thousands of high-quality public domain images on publicdomainpictires.net. You can also download high-quality pictures, illustrations, and vectors for free from Public Domain Pictures. It has features for easy viewing, and images are organized into categories on the website.

5. New Old Stock

This website contains a lovely collection of vintage pictures in the public domain. You can use the images from this website without any restrictions.

As New Old Stock contains CC0 Licensed Images, you can use these cc0 images free widely in different public domains. This website mainly focuses on recapturing history.

6. Pixabay

Pixabay.com is a website that offers free stock photos and royalty-free stock media. It is used to share pictures, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage, and music under the Pixabay license, which allows for the unrestricted use of the material with some limitations.

7. My Stock Photos

To assist you with your projects, MyStockPhotos provides an extensive database of gorgeous, distinctive, and cc0 stock photos to assist you with your projects.

All the photos are published under a Creative Commons CC0 license, which means you can do whatever you want with them, even use them for commercial purposes as it contains CC0 licensed images.

8. SplitShire

Daniel Nanescu’s SplitShire is a gorgeous set of pictures shared under the CC0 License. Hence this website contains all the CC0 Licensed Images.

You can instantly download a private collection of free and high-resolution images for personal and commercial use. You can also use tags, filters, the mosaic view, and other options for browsing the site.

9. The British Library

It features almost a million pictures, drawings, and works from 17th, 18th, and 19th-century volumes. All these works are released under the CC0 license and are free to use anywhere.

The British Library contains CC0 images as you can use them for the public domain anywhere on the internet. The library also provides opportunities for the students of high schools and help them in their career.

10. LibreShot

LibreShot showcases photographs by Martin Vorel that have been released into the public domain. All pictures on this website are released under a Creative Commons Public Domain license. You may copy, adapt, and perform the work, including for commercial reasons, without seeking permission.

All photographs on libreshot.com are free for commercial or personal usage. You may use it without inquiry or attribution. You may also get photographs from libreshot.com for free and use them digitally on websites, mobile applications, videos, or in print on posters, t-shirts, and billboards.

11. PDPics

PDPics is a collection of public domain stock pictures available for free, all the images on this website are CC0 Licensed Images. It also contains a vast selection of public domain photographs that you may download and use in your blog entries.

12. Reusable Arts

Reusable Art is a collection of copyright-free photos hand-picked by a crafter. These free ancient drawings, paintings, and illustrations have been recovered from archaic print materials in the hopes that they can be enjoyed by a new generation of artists and art enthusiasts.

These photographs on this site are copyright-free and in the public domain in the United States, nations signatories to the Berne Convention, and any country that provides copyrights to artists for up to 70 years after death or 120 years after death publication where the artist is unknown. They are completely unrestricted and may be used for whatever you choose.

13. Skitterphoto

Skitterphoto is one of the best locations to search, display, and share public domain photographs, and all of the photos on the site are free to use. This means that you can use any of the photographs for whatever you choose.

In addition, you can download and edit photos and utilize them for commercial purposes. The best aspect is that you can search for photographs using keywords. All the images in Skitterphoto are CC0 licensed images.

14. StockSnap.io

We understand how important it is to discover the exact correct image for the success of any creative endeavor, as a fantastic image elevates your content from “good” to “great.” To succeed, compelling, eye-catching, attention-grabbing work on the web need clear, captivating visual graphics.

StockSnap provides gorgeous, high-quality stock images for free for almost any use imaginable, including commercial use. There are no tricks, gimmicks, or fine print here; simply spectacular graphics for your creative ideas.

15. Barn Image

Igor Trepeshchenok and Roman Drits, two Latvian photographers, founded BarnImages in March 2015. Barnimages was founded to rethink traditional stock photography. You’ll only get high-quality, original photos here, with nothing that looks like stock photography you’d find elsewhere. They refer to their library as “non-stock,” and update it with fresh free photos every week.

16. Burst

Shopify’s Burst is a free stock photo marketplace for entrepreneurs. The photos are both royalty-free and free to use. In addition, the Burst has an excellent section on company ideas, complete with advice and high-resolution graphics to help you get started.

17. Free images

Under its license, Free Images offers over 300,000 free stock images. The license allows for a wide range of uses, albeit it does specify a few exceptions (which are pretty typical for most free images sites)

18. Kaboompics

Kaboompics has its license, identical to Creative Commons Zero, except that you cannot redistribute its photographs. I like Kaboompics for two reasons: one, it allows me to search by color, and two, it provides a complementary pallet of colors in the shot.

19. Canva

Canva is a free visual creation application with a library of stock pictures. In addition, Canva has the advantage of converting an image into a bespoke graphic for use on social media or your blog.

20. Life of Pix

Life of Pix offers free high-resolution photos and collaborates with Adobe Stock to provide more (paid) stock photos with no copyright limitations for personal and business use.

Every week, new photos are posted! All photos have been submitted to the public domain with creative commons zero images. But, there is no mass distribution permitted. However, distributors are permitted to republish a maximum of ten photographs without the prior permission of Life of Pix.

21. Gratisography

Gratisography has a free photo license. It allows you to do “almost everything you can imagine.” Unfortunately, they only offer a small number of photographs at the moment. But, many of them are high-quality images that I would use.

22. Flickr

Flickr is a photo-sharing website where you can find photographs that you can use and change for commercial purposes. To identify those photos, select “Commercial use & mods allowed” from the “Any licence” filter and remember to verify the licensing for each image since they differ.

23. The Jopwell Collection

You can find hundreds of photographs of people from the Jopwell community in the Jopwell Collection. This is divided into many albums. The photographs can be downloaded and used for free as long as you credit Jopwell.

24. CreateHerStock

The team at CreateHER Stock has hand-picked more than 200 high-resolution photos of women. You’ll also get new free photos every month; when you join its newsletter, you can join its newsletter for regular updates.

25. Death to Stock

Death to Stock, unlike the majority of the websites, Death to Stock does not include a picture gallery. Instead, it will send you 20 new photographs every month when you join its newsletter.

26. Getty Images

This may come as a shock to you (as it was to me). By embedding Getty Photographs images on your non-commercial websites, you can use them for free. It’s still not a good idea to download an image and upload it to your website; instead, you should embed it. The embed keeps its frame, branding, and share buttons. So it’s a little more obtrusive than only adding a photo to your post. However, it is still an alternative worth considering for many blogs.

27. Pic Jumbo

PicJumbo provides a wide range of free photos for any use, with no registration necessary. Subscribing to their newsletter will also provide you with new free photographs.

If you have the means, look at their premium photo collections, which look fantastic. For Stories content, it even features vertical photos, and it contains CC0 Licensed images for free.

28. Crello

Crello, like Canva, is a free graphic design tool from Depositphotos. It includes a large number of free CC0 Licensed images.

29. Depositphotos

Every week, it updates its collection of free pictures, vectors, editorial content, and footage. You can also create an account to receive weekly free stock files.

30. Istock

When you join up for a free membership with iStock, you get a fresh batch of free stock files every week. This website contains all the CC0 Licensed images for the public domain.

31. Superfamous

The work of Dutch interaction designer Folkert Gorter is featured on Superfamous. Also, his photography is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. This implies that you are free to use the work for personal or commercial use as long as credit is given.

32. Google advanced image search

It is a way of using Google’s search engines to find free-to-use photos. You can find CC0 licensed images directly in the search engine.

Conclusion

The discussion has indicated that images are critical to website exposure. With beautiful photographs, you can increase the number of people who visit your website. Also, if you use it for a startup or small business, you may expect increased revenue.

As a result, you get this for free when you use public domain photos on websites. As a startup, you have access to photos relevant to your industry. This gives you an advantage over your competitors.

Regardless of the stock photo source, you use it is critical to saving your photographs as web-optimized files so that your website loads quickly. We hope that this article has helped you find the most incredible free public domain and CC0 Licensed images for your website.