One of the best known sources for free images – Pixabay – is a real asset to web masters and other creatives in that its contents are released under Creative Commons CC0. This means that it is completely safe to use their images without any need to ask for permission or pay any royalties. There is also no need to give credit to the photographer or artist, even if you are using them for commercial purposes, although it would be the polite thing to do.

Pixabay is easy to use with a simple search facility.

In addition to a really excellent selection of photographs, there are vector images and videos as well. If you are an artist or photographer yourself you can easily join and become a Pixabay contributor – a great way to get your name out there and gain some awareness for the work you do.

Pixabay images are organised into simple categories that may take a bit of navigating in order to find what you are looking for but, hey, it’s free so there’s nothing to complain about there.

You’re probably thinking that all of this is too good to be true, and that’s understandable. After all, how can anyone afford to run such a service for free?

Good Question. The answer is that Pixabay do include some images that are “sponsored” from Shutterstock – probably the market leader in online paid image libraries, or certainly one of them – so if youwant one of those images there will be a fee. It’s easy to avoid those images however, they are clearly marked.

You can use the images wherever you need them, including Social Media. It’s a treasure trove and well worth checking out.

As we said, Pixabay is free and we all need images from time to time so why not sign up for an account today?