Where to find free images to be used on websites?

are they available for free...

[contentmaster]

Are there any sites that offer free images on varied subjects like pictures of people, technology, computers, etc...which can be saved and used on websites....with little or no change required?

[pmkpmk]

Hi,

a search for this on any search engine will reveal quite a large number of sites. However to sieve through it is time consuming, and often they only allow free usage for non commercial sites.

I came across one already big and constantly growing image database, which is completely free. However you need to place a Copyright text next to the images. If you want to check it out: [visipix.com ]

What I did some time ago is bought one of these CD-sets from Hemera with 15+ CD's containing mid resolution pictures on white backgrounds with alpha channels. The CD set is a bit costly, but there's several thousand of images on it and a good search function. Almost all low-key artwork on my sites comes form these CD's.

The key visuals however are carefully generated and crafted by hand. I would NEVER rely only on a CD-set or an image database for the key visuals!

[Stratus42]

Not free, but very cheap (50 cents each!) is www.istockphoto.com .I highly recommend this place. you can get high quality versions of the photos for a buck, but for web purposes the 50cent resolutions are great.

Lana

[Shannon Moore]

You could always take your own photos... but then you'd discover they're not (necessarily) free to create, hence why many of them are licensed for a fee.

That said, there are many free or extremely low cost sources of stock photography online (a couple have already been mentioned).

[contentmaster]

Thanks for the help! Yes I know I can probably take some pictures myself but that's too much of an effort and time consuming...and I also want good quality pics...so i think i wl have to check out some of these sites...i just thought there would be some free ones somewhere on the net!

[Maylin]

Check out [sxc.hu...] for a good selection of free stockart. You could also try [stockart.deviantart.com...] which is free, but some artists ask that you let them know that you are going to use it, so read the artist comments for images you would like to use. You could also try Microsoft's clipart section of their site if you use Microsoft products.

One thing to watch out for with sites with huge image collections offered for free is if THEY stole the copyrighted images. I've seen many "free" image sites like this.

[Soth]

This place isn't bad.

[freeimages.co.uk...]

[twist]

I know I can probably take some pictures myself but that's too much of an effort and time consuming

I bought a $300 digital camera and a $80 512MB memory card. I can, and have, taken over 600 pictures in 1 day. Sure, out of those 600 I throw out about 550 since I usually will take the same picture of something from 20 different angles and settings. Then I spend a couple days touching up the pictures using fireworks, but in about 3 days I have 50 good pictures I can use anywhere I want and however I want. It is time consuming and does take some effort but it is nice to know that I always have a stockpile of images at my disposal.