Over at Web Design From Scratch Ben Hunt talks about Royalty-Free Image Libraries and makes some suggestions to paid services. I think his suggestions are worthwhile and you will need to end up belonging to one of the subscription services he suggests. However, I thought I’d share a few links to free services I use as well as one pay service that wasn’t mentioned.

Stock.XCHNG
Stock.XCHNG was launched in February 2001, as an alternative for expensive stock photography. The idea was to create a site where creative people could exchange their photos for inspiration or work. In about two years the site evolved into this massive community you see now - there are about 500,000 registered users and more than 180,000 photos online!

The only thing you have to watch out for with this site, are folks who you need to seek permission from to use their photos in public works otherwise, the best (that I’ve found) free stock photo site out there.

Morgue File
A place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.

Morgue File tends to be more “snap-shotty” than Stock.XCHNG but you can still find some very usable images there.

Deviant Art
This place can be hard to navigate and even harder to find what you’re really looking for but it’s a great source for stock photos, especially textures.

iStockPhoto
iStockphoto® is the world’s preeminent collection of member-generated royalty-free images, at the world’s best prices. There are no subscription fees or extra costs. Just the best Stock Photography, Vector illustrations, and Flash files online, at prices for everyone.

iStockPhoto works with credits, you don’t need to pay a subscription fee, just a per image fee, which is nice if you need one or two images for a project but don’t want to pay $80-$200 per image.