I, Resolve

I’ve yet to find a stock photography website that matches Gettyimages.com in terms of quality, selection, and functionality. They’ve just added their Flickr collection, handpicked images with both rights-managed and royalty-free options. But if price is a consideration, this list of sites can help you find what you’re looking for, for a buck or less!

1. MorgueFile
Our TOP PICK for free photos, MorgueFile is a public image archive “for creatives by creatives.” Free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not! (You can make a donation to support the site). Maybe not the most sophisticated Search function but some great, professional quality photos and you don’t even have to register.

2. Yahoo Image Search
Going one step better than Google, Yahoo’s advanced filter makes it easy to search for images that can be repurposed without copyright infringement. This new feature only applies to Flickr images. Flickr already offers the Creative Commons filter for its users (Flickr is a property of Yahoo!) but no other search engine provides this license filter.

3. Woophy
Woophy stands for WOrld Of PHotographY, a Dutch collective of photo aficionados and designers who created this site’s unique visual navigation system. The goal: an accessible, current, database picturing our remarkable world. Visitors of can download a low resolution image for non-commercial, personal purposes only. There doesn’t seem to be any way to purchase the images for commercial use.

4. Stock.xchng
One of the better sites for free photos, they offer “Premium” images for a nominal fee. Searching and browsing through nearly 400,000 images is easy and there’s a handy lightbox feature to save images before you download them.

5. Stockvault.net
You don’t have to sign up to be able to download their images, but if you do you can access special features. All images on this site are free for personal and non-commercial usage. Not the greatest selection though (just 13,000 plus).

6. istockphoto.com
Our TOP PICK for low-cost royalty free photos. iStockphoto claims to be the internet’s original member-generated image and design community. Good search function for over 4 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage, audio tracks and Flash files. Images cost between 1 to 28 credits per download, depending on the file type and image size. Credits are $1.40 each, and a minimum purchase of $18 is required.

7. 123RF
Purchase download credits ($1 per credit and a minimum purchase of $15.00) or subscribe to a subscription plan starting at $89.00 for 30 days. Then browse their collection of 3.3 million royalty-free stock photos.

8. Dreamstime
5,702,258 images and counting… Dreamstime provides high quality images to individuals and Fortune 500 companies (including the world’s largest advertising agencies, magazines, film and tv production companies). Buy credits for high-resolution stock images starting at 7 credits for $6.99. Rather awkward sign-up process and not really intuitive to use, but worth the effort for the great selection of photos.

BONUS SITE Photo Rogue
Our pick for MOST UNIQUE CONCEPT. You can request a picture of anything you want, and volunteer photographers will go out and attempt to actually take the picture you want. It’s entirely free, although they don’t guarantee that your request will ever be filled. I haven’t tried this yet but I’m intrigued by the idea.

Do you have a favorite site not mentioned above? Let us know.