You're on the Internet. It's full of colors and moving objects as well as static ones. Adding some interesting pictures and graphics to your pages will help to break up the text on your pages. And it will create a page that is much more interesting and pleasant on the eye.
With that being said, we have put together this resource that includes websites that provide royalty free images.
License and Registration Please
As of this writing, the websites listed below do include images that can be used for free on commercial websites. Terms change though. Please always double check the license of an image before using it especially if you are running a commercial website.
Pexels
Pexels.com offers a variety of high quality images from all different categories to use on your website.
License: Pexels offers a Creative Commons Zero License. This allows for use of the images for free or personal use. The images can even be modified so they can be edited as needed. There is not a requirement to list any attribution.
Pexels has a fantastic database of images and they are constantly adding new images to their offerings. Images can be searched through specific categories, or you can add keywords into the search box.
Images of different widths are also available, so wider landscape images sometimes have a better aspect ratio for your content.
Categories include high quality images from Business to People and Technology to Landscapes.
OpenPhoto
OpenPhoto.net also has an impressive selection of high quality images. Images can be searched through collection names, by photographer or by keyword.
Licenses: Click on each image to see the specific license available for the image. Most licenses allow use on commercial or personal use, and they also allow for modification. However, most of the images also include attributrion requirements (meaning a link to a website and photographer has to be included along with the image). A copy and paste code is available to include on your website. Some images are not availabe
Attribution can be included in the 'Caption' field of the image upload areas on your content pages, as seen in the sample photo below.
Their collections include Architecture, Portraits and Professions.
Free Images
FreeImages.com offers almost 400,000 images and illustrations as well as premium images (from istock/Getty images). We'll just refer to the free ones here.
License: FreeImages offers detailed license information found on their website. The images are available for personal or commercial use on your website and modification is allowed. Sometimes there is more information available in the description of each individual image for desired attribution/credit information.
What is most interesting about all of the images found on freeimages.com is that the picture details are also available along with the image. For example, the type of camera that had been used along with the exposure time and focal length if available. It also includes the number of times downloaded which may be helpful if you are looking for a popular image.
There really is an unbelievable amount of images to be found on freeimages.com. There are 26 different categories, and each time you go to the page, you are presented with an assortment of images from different categories. No matter the content of your article or website, you should be able to find something appropriate for your message.
The only tricky part is sometimes the premium images can come up when it looks like you have clicked on images that are free. If you click on anything that says 'istock' or 'getty' or 'premium', you are in the wrong section. Just scroll down to find the free section. A watermark can usually be seen over the premium images while there is not a watermark over the free images.
Also, downloading their images (even the free ones), does require you to sign up for an account.