Free Stock Images
- Burst (Shopify)Free stock photos from Shopify, good organization by themes. Beware, not all photos are CC0.
- Canadian Stock Photo LibraryCira, the company in charge of the .ca domain, has provided a very tongue-in-cheek collection of Canadian specific stock images like "hockey player checks out lumberjack while woman in Canadian tuxedo looks on in disbelief."
- Creative Commons' OpenverseCreative Commons allows users to search over 600 million free stock photos, images, and audio.
- FreeImagesPopular free stock images site with +300k photos & illustrations. Previously stock.xchng (SXC), acquired by Getty Images. Filter search with general keyword of your choice.
- Getty Free ImagesGetty Images is THE source for rights-managed photos and videos. However, they also provide free stock photos for the public as well.
- NappyStock photos that feature only people of colour. All photos are free with a CC0 license.
- The Noun ProjectCurated collection of diverse icons and stock photographs.
- PexelsStarted in Germany in 2014, purchased by Canva in 2018. Pexels offers over 3 million free stock photos and videos.
- PixabayOver 2 million high quality photos free for commercial use, no attribution required. Acquired by Canva in 2019.
- StockSnapA large collection of creative commons public domain photos.
- UnsplashStarted in 2013 by Montrealer Mikael Cho, Unsplash is now a subsidiary of Getty Images. 3.5+ million photos available.
Photo Collections from Museums & Archives
- Archives of OntarioOver 6 million photographs, architectural drawings, maps, and works of art. Their paper records are equivalent to 286 CN Towers!
- The British MuseumOver 2 million high quality images from the museum's collection.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaMillions of items from libraries, museums, archives, and other American cultural institutions.
- EuropeanaAccess to over 33 million images from 4000 different European libraries, galleries, museums and archives.
- Flickr CommonsFlickr has over 10 billion images! Flickr Commons brings together the historical photography collections of over 100 institutions. Search without copyright restrictions.
- The Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)More than 14 million images from the Library of Congress' collection, including photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings, all in the public domain.
- New York Public Library Digital CollectionsNYPL offers almost 1 billion digital images. Filter your search for "public domain materials."
- Smithsonian Open AccessBrowse through millions of copyright-free images in the Smithsonian's public domain collection.
- Toronto Public Library's Digital ArchiveOver 170,000 digitized photos, maps, books and ephemera from Toronto Public Library — includes Toronto Star photos.
Choosing Reference Photos
Professor Clara Lieu and artist Cat Huang provides guidance on choosing reference photos for creative projects.
How to Find Free Images
- Digital Skills Hub: Finding Free Images
This video guides students with finding and using free images for course projects. This includes all kinds of images you may find online, from graphics to photographs to icons.
Free Image Management Tools
Managing images can be as simple as:
- Renaming photos in a consistent method,
- Saving photos in organized folders,
- Backing up your work regularly to a cloud or other external drive.
However, working on a large creative project can be made a lot easier by trying out image management software.
- Adobe BridgeAdobe's free asset manager allows you to organize your images, conduct batch renames, change file types, resize, and edit metadata.
- TropyTropy is a free and open source software for organizing and describing photos. Add tags or metadata info, add notes about image rights, or sort images thematically by creating lists.
Free Photo Editing Software
- Adobe ExpressFree tool from Adobe to quickly resize images, specializing in dimensions for social media. Email sign-up required.
- GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)GIMP is a free cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems. Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done.
- Paint.NETPaint.NET is image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows. This free software features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
- Web ResizerFree tool to optimize images for websites by reducing file size.