7 ms·

Pexels – Free stock photos

136 points by tilt 10y ago

fauria 10y ago
Nice project! I used to find free stock photos browsing Flickr filtering by license: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10 https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10
nnq 10y ago
So, can I use the ones with faces of people in them if they don't have a Model Release Form... ?
- Shengbo 10y ago
  "The only restriction is that identifiable people may not appear in a bad light or in a way that they may find offensive, unless they give their consent."
  - egeozcan 10y ago
    > in a way that they may find offensive IANAL but isn't that too vague?
    - singlow 10y ago
      ShutterStock is similarly vague, although they give some examples of offensive use. From the ShutterStock license: [YOU MAY NOT] Portray any person depicted in Visual Content (a "Model") in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive, including but not limited to depicting a Model: a) in connection with pornography, "adult videos", adult entertainment venues, escort services, dating services, or the like; b) in connection with the advertisement or promotion of tobacco products; c) in a political context, such as the promotion, advertisement or endorsement of any party, candidate, or elected official, or in connection with any political policy or viewpoint; d) as suffering from, or medicating for, a physical or mental ailment; or e) engaging in immoral or criminal activities.
    - huac 10y ago
      this is one area you'd want it to be vague (from the image curator/host's perspective)
      - egeozcan 10y ago
        ...so if the model happens to be Muslim and someone uses it in a website which sells pork meat, there is a potential case here? (I chose the example because I'm coming from a country in which this kind of stuff usually happened to be a problem - nothing meant against any religion or group).
- tomcam 10y ago
  Nope. Not in the USA. One of the best reasons to use a reputable commercial provider. Pixabay told me via email that their models do sign releases.
rotten 10y ago
How does their business model work? Are they a not-for-profit or non-profit? Do they really get enough money from shutterstock click-throughs and donations to fund the site and image curation process?
- Shengbo 10y ago
  They also have ads and an app and/or PS plugin they're selling for $19.
bb101 10y ago
Is it just me, or do quite a few of the photos look like they are from Unsplash?
- kennydude 10y ago
  Yup > Photo Sources > Only Creative Commons images from our community of photographers and sources like Unsplash, Gratisography, Little Visuals and many more are added to our photo database. We constantly try to deliver as many high quality free stock photos as possible to the creatives who use our website.
dchest 10y ago
Looks good! Another public domain collection I use: https://pixabay.com/ https://pixabay.com/
- derwiki 10y ago
  I just got a $2 donation on Pixabay for one of my photos :-)
aakarpost 10y ago
This site looks great. But think, Unsplash is unbeatable.
przemoc 10y ago
Can be useful. Thanks for sharing! I usually used sxc.hu so far, which became FreeImages.com some time ago.
StevePerkins 10y ago
The more variety, the better! Apparently a lot of people love Unsplash, but how many... (1) mountainscapes (2) cityscapes (3) fields (4) pretty girls standing in fields, and (5) coffeshop patrons typing away on powered-off MacBooks ... does the world really need? Especially when they all come with washed-out Instagram filters pre-applied.
- shash7 10y ago
  Seriously. It has almost become a cliche now.
- eitally 10y ago
  I started a curated-link daily news roundup a couple months ago and the plethora of #5 was perfect for what I'd named "breakfast reading". :)
- pavlov 10y ago
  It's interesting to watch how what was considered good taste a short time ago is gradually becoming tired, cliché, phoney -- and in 10 years will look as outdated as 2003's web designs look now. The software industry and startup scene is enormously fashion-driven. A lot of people like to pretend it's the opposite though: a group of ideal meritocracies building highly needed products based on rational data-driven decisions...
  - jimhefferon 10y ago
    It is as though people were just responding, unthinkingly, to some stimulus.
  - jbpetersen 10y ago
    Staying fashionable for a given context is a fantastic means of signaling that you're well connected. Even more so if you kick off a new trend. Fashion based signals then inevitable degrade as they become more mainstream and are replaced by whatever hot new thing that's different enough to avoid confusion with other trends. Even an ideal meritocracy requires abstractions for efficient communication.
fluxic 10y ago
It's no Unsplash... sorry.
satuim 10y ago
The website I used was - http://librestock.com/ http://librestock.com/ Which is a large search engine for public domain images. Too bad the search sucks compared to this.
- davegri 10y ago
  Hey! I'm the creator of librestock, could you please clarify as to what sucks and how I can improve it? I'm very much a beginner.
  - exodust 10y ago
    I think he means Pexels search sucks, not yours. Although he/she is not clear. Your site does not look like it was made by a beginner. Seriously, is this what beginners can do? I just did a side by side comparison searching for "ashtray", and your Librestock search actually finds ashtray photos from Pexels that not even Pexels search returns. So I'm quite confident that Pexels search sucks and yours does not suck.
    - davegri 10y ago
      Oh man thats a relief! The reason I can find stuff from pexels that they cant find is actually because I have duplicate image detection that sources the tags from multiple sources. So a different source must have tagged it as ashtray! I've been building websites for a year. I still consider myself very much a beginner. (I worked in design before that). thanks for the compliment!
jrbapna 10y ago
Can these stock photos be used commercially? Can they be resold?
- sleepychu 10y ago
  Yes, CC0 License.[0] [0] - https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/ https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/
davegri 10y ago
I got sick of seeing 100 different websites with stock photos so I built a web crawler to crawl all of them and put the links into a database Thats how http://librestock.com http://librestock.com was born. enjoy :)
a_small_island 10y ago
I personally prefer the UI design on pexels over unsplash
VOYD 10y ago
free? Does nobody ever learn?
- exodust 10y ago
  Your comment lacks all the things needed for discussion to go anywhere. Was that your intention? You take issue with "free" and in addition there's some valuable lesson we should be remembering, but that's where you've stumped me.

136 points by tilt 10y ago

Nice project! I used to find free stock photos browsing Flickr filtering by license: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10 https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10

nnq 10y ago

So, can I use the ones with faces of people in them if they don't have a Model Release Form... ?

Shengbo 10y ago
"The only restriction is that identifiable people may not appear in a bad light or in a way that they may find offensive, unless they give their consent."
- egeozcan 10y ago
  > in a way that they may find offensive IANAL but isn't that too vague?
  - singlow 10y ago
    ShutterStock is similarly vague, although they give some examples of offensive use. From the ShutterStock license: [YOU MAY NOT] Portray any person depicted in Visual Content (a "Model") in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive, including but not limited to depicting a Model: a) in connection with pornography, "adult videos", adult entertainment venues, escort services, dating services, or the like; b) in connection with the advertisement or promotion of tobacco products; c) in a political context, such as the promotion, advertisement or endorsement of any party, candidate, or elected official, or in connection with any political policy or viewpoint; d) as suffering from, or medicating for, a physical or mental ailment; or e) engaging in immoral or criminal activities.
  - huac 10y ago
    this is one area you'd want it to be vague (from the image curator/host's perspective)
    - egeozcan 10y ago
      ...so if the model happens to be Muslim and someone uses it in a website which sells pork meat, there is a potential case here? (I chose the example because I'm coming from a country in which this kind of stuff usually happened to be a problem - nothing meant against any religion or group).
tomcam 10y ago
Nope. Not in the USA. One of the best reasons to use a reputable commercial provider. Pixabay told me via email that their models do sign releases.

rotten 10y ago

How does their business model work? Are they a not-for-profit or non-profit? Do they really get enough money from shutterstock click-throughs and donations to fund the site and image curation process?

Shengbo 10y ago
They also have ads and an app and/or PS plugin they're selling for $19.

bb101 10y ago

Is it just me, or do quite a few of the photos look like they are from Unsplash?

kennydude 10y ago
Yup > Photo Sources > Only Creative Commons images from our community of photographers and sources like Unsplash, Gratisography, Little Visuals and many more are added to our photo database. We constantly try to deliver as many high quality free stock photos as possible to the creatives who use our website.

dchest 10y ago

Looks good! Another public domain collection I use: https://pixabay.com/ https://pixabay.com/

derwiki 10y ago
I just got a $2 donation on Pixabay for one of my photos :-)

aakarpost 10y ago

This site looks great. But think, Unsplash is unbeatable.

przemoc 10y ago

Can be useful. Thanks for sharing! I usually used sxc.hu so far, which became FreeImages.com some time ago.

StevePerkins 10y ago

The more variety, the better! Apparently a lot of people love Unsplash, but how many... (1) mountainscapes (2) cityscapes (3) fields (4) pretty girls standing in fields, and (5) coffeshop patrons typing away on powered-off MacBooks ... does the world really need? Especially when they all come with washed-out Instagram filters pre-applied.

shash7 10y ago
Seriously. It has almost become a cliche now.
eitally 10y ago
I started a curated-link daily news roundup a couple months ago and the plethora of #5 was perfect for what I'd named "breakfast reading". :)
pavlov 10y ago
It's interesting to watch how what was considered good taste a short time ago is gradually becoming tired, cliché, phoney -- and in 10 years will look as outdated as 2003's web designs look now. The software industry and startup scene is enormously fashion-driven. A lot of people like to pretend it's the opposite though: a group of ideal meritocracies building highly needed products based on rational data-driven decisions...
- jimhefferon 10y ago
  It is as though people were just responding, unthinkingly, to some stimulus.
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  Staying fashionable for a given context is a fantastic means of signaling that you're well connected. Even more so if you kick off a new trend. Fashion based signals then inevitable degrade as they become more mainstream and are replaced by whatever hot new thing that's different enough to avoid confusion with other trends. Even an ideal meritocracy requires abstractions for efficient communication.

fluxic 10y ago

It's no Unsplash... sorry.

satuim 10y ago

The website I used was - http://librestock.com/ http://librestock.com/ Which is a large search engine for public domain images. Too bad the search sucks compared to this.

davegri 10y ago
Hey! I'm the creator of librestock, could you please clarify as to what sucks and how I can improve it? I'm very much a beginner.
- exodust 10y ago
  I think he means Pexels search sucks, not yours. Although he/she is not clear. Your site does not look like it was made by a beginner. Seriously, is this what beginners can do? I just did a side by side comparison searching for "ashtray", and your Librestock search actually finds ashtray photos from Pexels that not even Pexels search returns. So I'm quite confident that Pexels search sucks and yours does not suck.
  - davegri 10y ago
    Oh man thats a relief! The reason I can find stuff from pexels that they cant find is actually because I have duplicate image detection that sources the tags from multiple sources. So a different source must have tagged it as ashtray! I've been building websites for a year. I still consider myself very much a beginner. (I worked in design before that). thanks for the compliment!

jrbapna 10y ago

Can these stock photos be used commercially? Can they be resold?

sleepychu 10y ago
Yes, CC0 License.[0] [0] - https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/ https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/

davegri 10y ago

I got sick of seeing 100 different websites with stock photos so I built a web crawler to crawl all of them and put the links into a database Thats how http://librestock.com http://librestock.com was born. enjoy :)

a_small_island 10y ago

I personally prefer the UI design on pexels over unsplash

VOYD 10y ago

free? Does nobody ever learn?

exodust 10y ago
Your comment lacks all the things needed for discussion to go anywhere. Was that your intention? You take issue with "free" and in addition there's some valuable lesson we should be remembering, but that's where you've stumped me.