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Need photos for a website and the client has zero cash, What are sources of free stock photos? And how do I understand what the terms and conditions mean?

UPDATE: Changed the title from "free" to "free/cheap". I need an easy to use source of photos, meaning I they OWN the rights to the photos. Some stock photo websites disclaim that the have rights to the photos. Examples: SXC.hu, Bigstock (if you know of others, please comment. See comments to answers for details. Thanks!)

IMPORTANT: SXC.hu DOES NOT own the rights to any of the photos in their index. You must get the media owner to sign a "new" contract just with you. That's a lot of overhead, and the only way SXC.hu gives you to contact the owner is a web-form that has no additional info on the owner than their username.

blunders
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5 Answers5

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Stock.XCHNG is the best free stock photo site I've found. You'll have to read the license for each photo to make sure you can use for commercial purposes and if you need attribution, but I've generally found that I can use most of the photos on the site.

Also see:

Virtuosi Media
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search.creativecommons.org combines image search results from multiple engines using each engine's licensing filter to only return images that are licensed for commercial use under a Creative Commons license.

The standard disclaimer about checking the license of each image you plan to use should apply to any answer given here.

BenV
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Here's are some nice comparisons and reviews of stock photo services:

GOOGLE_KEYWORDS: stock-photo-comparison,

And here's a nice price-comparison search engine for stock photography:

blunders
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check out Big Stock Photo

gabe.
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Well, I'm currently using www.kozzi.com. I'll say that this site is really an amazing site since they provide incredible and stunning photos and images to use in blogs or websites. And its photos and images are free to download by the way. :)

Tasha
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