Searching for high resolution and visually appealing images to create event visuals that captures the branding, vibe, and key message of an event can be quite the challenge, particularly if you’re on a budget and cannot afford “royalty-free” images.

Fortunately there are several online repositories of photos that you can use commercially for free and some doesn’t even require attribution to the photographer. We have shortlisted 10 sites that caters to different styles of photography, so you can find one that suits your needs.

1. LifeOfPix

An image on LifeOfPix by Nabeel Syed

Run by Montreal advertising agency LEEROY, LifeOfPix is a repository of free high-resolution photos without copyright restrictions. Images are for personal commercial use only, and they add new photographers from their network every week. All images are donated to the public domain. We particularly like their images of urban city life.

2. Pexels

‘Before Wedding’ from Pexels via Kaboompics.com

Almost 3,000 photos completely free for any legal purpose, and attribution is not required.

3. StockSnap.io

An image on StockSnap.io by Verne Ho

StockSnap personally curates the best stock photos from around the web and from a number of daily submissions. The end result in their words: “a bad ass repository of beautiful stock photography.” We can’t disagree!

4. Death To The Stock Photo

The goal of Death To The Stock Photo is “to help more brands create rich digital experiences that elevated their visual aesthetic— without shelling out wads of cash, or their sanity.” It’s no wonder the response to their work has been massive. Two photographers started out this project by sending out email packs of photos from their hard drives to brands, bloggers, and creatives struggling to find images that fit their vibe and tribe. Sign up to their mailing list and get a fresh pack of photos sent to your inbox every month, “with awesome stories to match.”

5. Unsplash

Their description says it best: “Free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos. 10 new photos every 10 days.” Unsplash has beautiful idyllic nature landscapes and fine attention to detail and textures of every day life. Expect minimal focus on faces.

An image on Unsplash by Iswanto Arif

Unsplash releases 10 new photos every 10 days, all hi-res, all free for whatever good use you can think of. Furthermore, if you’re designing a website for your event and require fuss-free placeholder images, Unsplash It automatically creates placeholder photos for you from Unsplash – you can alter width and height, create monochrome or blur images within seconds.

6. SplitShire

Birthday Cake from SplitShire

Check out SplitShire‘s amazing copyright-free real photos for personal and commercial use. There’s a sidebar of category listings and Premium section for better content. Use SplitShire photos for your website, advertising material, image placeholders, template files, video projects, book covers, music artwork,etc. The only thing you can’t do with SplitShire photos: Sell them, or place them in third-party stock photo websites.

7. Foter

Social Media on Foter

Foter hosts over 200 million free Creative Commons images from many online sources, such as Flickr. Each photo has variants in sizes, and the entire Foter system is available as a WordPress plugin that works seamlessly with any WordPress blog if you’re writing articles related to your event.

8. IconFinder

IconFinder’s featured free icon sets

Photos aren’t always the only visuals you’ll need for your event. Check out IconFinder’s repository of almost 10,000 icon sets to complete your branding presence online. Find social media icons, menu icons, and even credit card vendor icons for your website and other visuals. If you’re willing to fork out some money, their premium icon sets are great. Otherwise, they have plenty of free icon sets available too!

9. OpenClipArt

Interaction Designers by mairin

Are you creating slides for your event? Up your game with some classy vector clip art from OpenClipArt – a community and collection of vector clip art that is also free content. Browse through almost 75,000 pieces of clip art, and make a request if you still can’t find the one you want!

10. Compfight

Compfight is an image search engine tailored to efficiently locate images for blogs, comps, inspiration, and research. Their tagline says it all— “Locate the visual inspiration you need. Super fast!” This site will comb through Flickr for the photos you’ll need based on your keywords.

• Peatix Tip: Make full use of their filter features— Use it to sift specifically for Creative Commons licensed images, original images, images used for commercial purposes, safe image search and more.

Bonus: AllTheFreeStock

Require more free stock photos? AllTheFreeStock is a portal to many other stock photo sites. Scroll down their sidebar and enjoy!

Should you choose to use an image for your event from any of the websites above, do remember rule number one: Be respectful and responsible. That is, negative portrayals of visible faces and claiming the work of others as yours are definite no’s.

Have fun browsing and start creating amazing visuals for your event! Try Peatix for easy-to-use event registration and page creation.