Photography, Film and Video: Journals & Databases

The best 5 free image databases

Here’s our list of 5 databases that we can recommend you browse when searching for any type of photograph you need. These databases do not include only science or research related scenes, but all possible topics! But we have definitely used them for research-related pictures as well:  

A very good source for free images is unsplash.com, offering over 1 million great photographs.
Unsplash has a great range of thematic collections. Unsplash grants you access to their photos under their own license, which is equivalent to the Creative Commons CC0 license. You can download, use and modify all images for commercial and noncommercial purposes for free.
The database adds new images daily from enthusiastic photographers around the world who have found a platform to showcase their work and gain some recognition. Unsplash also does not require you to provide the photo source on your presentation or your product. It instead encourages everybody to credit the photographers and the database. 

You don’t need to create an account to download images with them. The benefit of signing up for a free account is to tag and create collections of your favourite photos, so you can follow the work of your favourite photographer and can even upload your own footage. 

Another great source for images is pixabay.com. It offers 820,000+ images for download without any fees and free use. As with Unsplash, downloaded pictures from Pixabay can be used for private or commercial purposes in original or modified versions.

Pixabay has a huge image database that you can use for free sporadically or you can create a free user account (needed to download high-resolution pictures). The database is available in many languages, which makes it easier to search in languages other than English. You can also search by the photographers’ names, if you prefer the style of one specific photographer. Besides photographs, Pixabay also offers free graphics and illustrations, as well as videos. 

Don’t be alarmed when you find commercial pictures from Adobe’s Shutterstock displayed on the Pixabay website. You don’t need to use any of them, it’s just Pixabay’s way of funding their website.  

A third recommendable option to look for beautiful images is StockSnap.io, which has a bit of a smaller collection than the two before-mentioned databases, but includes a very nice search system with many categories and tags. The database includes only photographs, no illustrations, graphics or videos. Like Pixabay, StockSnap collaborates with Shutterstock, so you will see some pictures from the Shutterstock database with their watermark included, before you see the truly free images provided by StockSnap. 

All usage of the StockSnap images follows the Creative Commons CC0 license and can be used without giving credit. You can download, use and modify the pictures for free. If you prefer, you can create a free account with StockSnap, then you are able to mark some photos as your favourites and to upload own photographs. 

 

A different approach than those before comes from flickr.com. It is, first of all, a database where photographers can showcase their images. Photos come on all quality levels, taken by travellers with their mobiles as well as by pros, which makes for a very broad collection. 

Flickr is one of the larger databases, which included over ten billion photos! 

The whole website comes in several languages. The search facilities on the site are very good and you can look for topics, categories, galleries, and even define picture orientation, size, colours and more. 

Not all photographs you find on Flickr are free for download or downloadable at all. Nonetheless, you find a lot of good material for free here! Flickr simply works with different licenses, depending on what the individual photographer has chosen. You can e.g. set the filter to “all creative common” and you will find plenty of footage that you can download, use and modify for free. 

Flickr also includes videos and illustrations. Images can be downloaded without creating an account, but setting up a free account enables you to store and tag your favourite images. A professional account allows you to have ad-free use and unlimited storage of pictures plus a few more features. 

 

The approach of https://www.pexels.com/ is to collect only high-quality images that they source from other free image databases or approve photographers to upload their images. 

All images on Pexels are free to use and come with a specific Pexels license, which basically follows the Creative Commons CC0 license. The database comes in several languages, which makes searching in other languages, again very easy.