Last updated on 12 May 2026
The power of images can no longer be demonstrated in a blog or website. They attract, illustrate, animate your publications. Above all, they are often an effective way to encourage your readers to read the articles. Finding publishable images respecting authors’ rights is usually not easy. Unless you know where to look. Here are five sites that will seriously make it easier for you to find images with a license Creative Commons for royalty-free use on your blog or that of your students.
1 – Morguefile. This search engine is no longer young, but for more than 10 years it has kept its promises. It helps you find royalty-free images in high resolution. High-quality, large-scale images are Morguefile’s specialty, which does not index images below 800 X 600 pixels. Link: Morguefile
2 – PhotoPin. This site feeds its database into the very popular Flickr photo storage service. It will allow you to search for millions of images in Creative Commons on Flickr. The search engine is fast and the results are in the form of thumbnails. Practically, PhotoPin offers you in the download page of the chosen image a code to copy and paste on your post that will correctly assign the rights of the photo. Link: PhotoPin
3 – EveryStockPhotos. Here is one of the most comprehensive sites on this list of five. EveryStockPhotos has more than 20 million snapshots that it will take from many online sources. It is distinguished by an advanced search interface that allows you to specify many parameters such as license type, size, resolution, but also the orientation of the photo for example if you need a vertical and non-horizontal image. Another highlight the results are presented in columns juxtaposed according to the license: Free license, Public Domain, Creative Commons and Commercial. Link: EveryStockPhotos
4 – Wikimedia Commons. I have a small staff for this huge multimedia database to which everyone can contribute. Public domain and free licences for the world of education are offered for nearly 20 million files and 100,000 collections, including many historical images. Note that Wikimedia Commons offers photos, but also sounds and video clips. Link: Wikimedia Commons
5 – Footer. If you can't find your ideal image elsewhere, test Footer. He will be able to find you the right photo in his database of more than 200 million shots from an almost exhaustive list of online sources. Practically, you only have to copy and paste the embedded code of the selected image so that it appears on your website or blog with the right credit. Another highlight for Footer, the site offers a plugin for WordPress, Free Stock Photos Footer. The latter facilitates the search, management and insertion of an image directly from the WordPress dashboard. Link: Footer
And how do you go about finding royalty-free images? Feel free to share your tips and tricks in the comments.
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English
Good morning. Thank you for this very interesting list. It is always a bit complicated to find quality images on the web, without paying a penny. On the other hand, be careful, we should not confuse free and free of rights.
A creative commons licence is still a licence, so it is not free of rights. If it were royalty-free, you could do what you want with the images, but that is not the case when there is a creative commons licence.
I also recommend two other beautiful websites:
https://www.pexels.com/ and Librestock.com