Free image bank – How to find free images

If you work in marketing, where you often have to use images for your marketing campaigns, then you know how expensive it can be to use images that are legal to use for marketing purposes. You probably already know about marketing services like Shutterstock, Istockphoto or Getty Images, where you can find fantastic images. However, these pictures are not free.

Fortunately, there are several good free image banks, where you can find free images that you can freely use in your marketing and in your newsletters. Below are some examples of image banks with good, free images.

Pixabay

At Pixabay you get access to over 1.4 million free images and even videos. By signing up, at the time of writing, you also get 30 days of free access to premium images on Adobe Stock. When you search for an image, you must be aware that the top line of the images will often be sponsored images that come from Shutterstock. Below these images are all free images that you have chosen to search for.

You can search for common images, vector graphics and illustrations, or you can search for videos. At the same time, you have the opportunity to search for images that are either horizontal or vertical in orientation, you can search categories such as architecture, computer, animals, people, business etc. you can search for images that must be at least a certain number of pixels in size, or you can search for images in a specific color.

When you select the image you want to use, you also get a number of similar images as suggestions, so you can choose variations that resemble the image you chose.

At MarketingPlatform, we have integrated Pixabay directly into the platform, and therefore, you can simply drag and drop images from Pixabay directly into your newsletter from your editor.

 

Pexels

At Pexels as with Pixabay, it is possible to download both free images and videos, although the video part is a bit hidden away and can be found at  https://videos.pexels.com/. Pictures can be used free of charge both privately and for commercial use. You do not need to donate anything to the one who uploaded the picture to the service, but you can choose to do so, if you wish. It is legal to change the pictures as you like.

The interface in Pexels is not quite as intuitive as Pixabay, but it is very easy to search for the topic you want. That is, at Pexels you cannot search for images in specific colors or sizes that you can do at Pixabay. However, you can refine your wishes in the search itself, so you, for example, can search for “office red” and then get pictures of office environments with red colors.

At MarketingPlatform, we have integrated Pexels directly into the platform, so that you, from your editor, simply drag and drop pictures from Pexels directly into your newsletter.

 

Unsplash

A third alternative for an image bank with free pictures for use in your marketing and your newsletters is Unsplash. Focus here is exclusively on free pictures and therefore, there is no free video material available.

Unsplash has an interface that is very similar to Pexels. In other words, no direct possibility of segmenting images directly from the search box, as it can be done in Pixabay, but you can define your specific wishes in the search box itself. Unsplash has a function with related images that is very similar to the image you choose. It makes it easy to find some good alternatives quickly.

At MarketingPlatform, we have integrated Unsplash directly into the platform, so that you, from your editor, simply can drag and drop pictures from Unsplash directly into your newsletter.

 

Iconfinder

Iconfinder stands out a bit from the above free image banks by dealing solely with icons. It is really smart tool, if you need to find small icons for menus or pictures.

At Iconfinder, you get access to a lot of icons. At the time of writing, there are over 2.600.000 icons available. However, not all icons are free.

When you download an icon you can choose a size between 16×16 and usually up to 512×512. The icon can be downloaded as SVG or PNG for free. There are extended options for downloading files, for example, for Adobe Illustrator use or as ICO, but here you have to pay for the icon.

You have the option to open the icons directly in Iconfinder’s own icon program, where you can modify them before download, and therefore also make the icons larger than the 512×512 format, which is by default a max standard size for a format that a person can download.

At MarketingPlatform, we have integrated Iconfinder directly into the platform, so that you, from your editor, simply can drag and drop icons from Iconfinder directly into your newsletter.

 

Canva

Canva is one of the newer services that has entered the market with free images. Many people already know Canva as a tool that you can use for free to quickly create graphics for e.g. Facebook, Instagram or newsletters. A smart little tool that now also offers millions of different high-resolution images, so you can create beautiful, creative designs. 

Canva has divided the free image bank into different categories like business, fashion, interiors, nature, outdoor, food and drink and many more. The images are associated with different tags, so it is easy and manageable to find a free image within the theme you need. 

In order to download the images, you must be registered as a user on Canva, but this is also free to do. Then there is free access to the big picture bank at Canva. 

StockSnap.io

StockSnap is another free image bank with fine images, which are freely available. It is not clear from the website how many pictures there are in their image bank, but on the other hand, it appears that every week several hundreds of new images are added. However, a quick search on the word “coffee” shows that there are over 700 images with this tag alone, so the image bank is definitely not small. 

StockSnap tries to make the image bank manageable by showing what is popular to search for. It is easy to segment in data directly from the search box on the front page, where you can search by date added, what is currently trending the most, which images have received the most views and downloads, and finally which images are marked as favorites. 

All of the free images in StockSnapp’s image bank are “free from copyright restrictions”, which is worth including, as some image banks offer images that may be free to use for private purposes, but which in commercial use are not free anymore.

If you have images that you would like to share with others for free use, you also have the opportunity to upload them to StockSnap so that other users can enjoy them. 

Freepik

Freepik is another image bank. It produces its own images and offers over 10 million graphic resources. Freepik produces visual content in the form of photographs, PSD’s, illustrations, and vectors. The platform operates by offering most of their content for free, but also offers a subscription service with more resources to choose from. 

With a variety of categories, freepik offers an abundance of visual content to choose from; backgrounds, flyers, banners, symbols and signs, social media, icons, and logos to name just a few.  
 
Freepik also allows you the opportunity to become a contributor and make money by selling your content (images and designs) online.