Pexels 3.0 — Best free stock photos in one place

@_jacksmith Compared to other free stock photo providers Pexels has a huge and a fast growing library with only high-quality pictures. Moreover, we have a powerful search and we’re constantly improving Pexels.

@_jacksmith To be honest they are all starting to have the exact same photos. Hitting up aggregators like allthefreestock.com always seems to be my course of action.

@_jacksmith I like to be open minded, loving and caring. However, why the heck do we have a new photo aggregation site at the top on PH every week? Can someone please explain?

@_jacksmith I've used a few. Pexels is user friendly and has a good selection. Licensing details are very clear and easy to find. They're also not pushing the premium photos in your face like some of the other free stock aggregators

@3runjo Any plans to allow image tagging?

@joshdance @3runjo I think they already have tagging in the sense that I'm thinking of. When you upload right under the picture there is a form for tags.

@joshdance @3runjo just about to say this. Pexels is by far the best resource for free images, but I find that the in-built tagging categories are too broad.

@3runjo If your stock photos are free. How can Pixel be sustainable as a business model? Will Pixel indemnify all of these free stock images being offered on your platform?

@3runjo In my opinion, the best free stock photos website of the bunch. Great interface, phenomenal selection. Congrats on the launch!

@bentossell I guess Pexels was one of the first of it's kind. All pictures are hand-selected to maintain a very high quality standard and also tagged so it's easy to search through the photos.

@danielfrese yeah so I'm keen to know whether being first was a big factor in this space and then loyalty prevails

@bentossell I think that in the long run in this space network effects and the total number and quality of pictures is the most important factor. In the end it's a marketplace with supply and demand.

@danielfrese yeah I get that but as there are so many in the space, there is almost unlimited choice

@bentossell That's true. It's gonna be interesting to see how the quality, quantity and searchability (tags, description) of pictures of different free stock photo sites will develop since in theory they can all acquire the same content because the pictures are all licensed under the CC0 license. My theory is that the site which has the best combination out of these factors (quality, quantity, searchability, discovery, first mover advantage) will lead the pack.

@adamscochran Thanks a lot!

@busse Thanks a lot for your feedback! We currently don’t have plans to include model releases but I’ll add it to our ToDo list. Until then you could ask the photographer if she/he has a model release. One reason why our photographers submit their photos is because they get a link to their website or portfolio. But more important is that they often want to help the community or want to get some feedback for their photos. Or they also use pictures from Pexels and they want to give something back.

@busse your #2 question is a very good one. My hobby is photography and I have some good shoots, but no matter what I do I can't get a penny for them. It is not easy to be a photographer nowadays, unless you sell your soul taking wedding photos, etc. I don't see the benefit of releasing in Pexels nor a similar website. I will -probably- do it on my own website in the future, kind of "this is my work, I am proud of it, if you want to use it go ahead". Thinking it again, I would do it in Unsplash, if they can assure me one of my pics will be on their book next year. That's something.

@ingojoseph @busse Most free stock photos do not provide model release for usage because they are not intended to be used for advertising purpose. They are great for comps, light usage like blogging. Free stock images is too risky to use for commercial purpose because the image is not "indemnify" by the stock agency itself which the user may be held liable for if they don't have permission to use from the model(s), the property owner(s) or logos and brand(s) appearing in the image. If you need to use the image for advertising purpose, you will need to purchase "Image Rights" based images from stock agencies like GettyImages, Corbis, ImagesSource, etc. Otherwise, you will need to do the legwork yourself and reach out to all of the parties involved in each and every one of those free stock images and make sure you have cleared all legal usage rights with all parties involved. Which I bet they will ask you for a fee if you're reaching out to them.

@braunshizzle It’s called Pexels ;) But thanks for your feedback! We only have one license (https://www.pexels.com/photo-lic...) and you can do whatever you want with our photos. So a license filter is not necessary. And we already have implemented a color search, e.g.: http://www.pexels.com/?s=color%3... And even more filters will follow.

@tylerbreton We also provide free videos: https://videos.pexels.com/. But audio is not planned yet.

@aleksandars_ Hi Aleksandar, thanks for your feedback. We will probably change it as you suggested soon.

@mattjblick We already have a color search, e.g.: https://www.pexels.com/search/co... (you can even use hex color codes)

@lynnfredricks Exactly. I recently found a premium photo from https://stock.tookapic.com being distributed for free on Pexels.

@pawelkadysz How do you resolve this problem for users? Here's a possible scenario: - 10,000 people find an awesome picture on your site, download and use it - you get a DMCA takedown notice, and you take it down (hopefully you are checking the claim as well) - You determine to take it down - maybe you find it elsewhere What about the 10,000 people who downloaded the image and area using it? Many users of content distribution sites don't realize that providers are typically able to utilize 'safe harbor' provisions to avoid a serious lawsuit, but do not realize that the end user has no such protection. I would imagine that a value add of, say, registration, would be notification of a change of legal status of an image.

@pawelkadysz Totally agree with you on this, Pawel. We've also decided to do the same with all the future photos on http://barnimages.com/ A couple free photography aggregators, like Stock Up by Site Builder Report or Librestock, give much more respect to photographers' work, and include a direct link to the original image source.