Photo from Unsplash

Originally Posted On: https://journal.everypixel.com/image-search-tools

Finding the perfect image for your project can be time-consuming and frustrating. Fortunately, there are many online tools available that can help you find the perfect visual content to meet your needs. In this article, we’ll look at image search tools for designers, content creators, and marketers. They offer a wide range of features, pricing and licensing options, and serve different purposes. So, let’s dive in and find the best one for your needs.

1. Everypixel

Source: everypixel.com

Everypixel is a search engine for both free and paid stock photos, vectors, and graphic patterns. The platform offers over 250 million images from over 50 sources, making it a great choice for designers, content creators, and marketers.

It uses AI technology to crawl websites, allowing users to quickly find high-quality imagery. Search engine results are curated by an AI algorithm that presents the most relevant content. This algorithm is also the backbone of a feature called Everypixel Aesthetics, which is designed to rate the aesthetic and technical quality of photos and help developers moderate content.

Pricing. Everypixel is free to use. To download an image, the service redirects users to the site that owns it, where they can purchase content. Everypixel’s AI algorithms are available through the API.

2. Icons8

Source: icons8.com

Icons8 is a company that develops a software suite for content creators and offers all kinds of digital assets for design. Icons8’s toolkit includes Moose, a library of diverse and easily customizable stock photos, icons, illustrations, and backgrounds, or MegaCreator, a tool that helps to create images in a drug-n-drop way. The software offers tons of high-quality media assets to create designs from scratch or using built-in and customizable templates for social networks – Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, or Product Hunt.

The company explains its business model as “Icons8 is 80% coding, and only 20% drawing,” and leverages AI algorithms to power its products’ features, such as photo generation.

Pricing. Icons8 assets are free in limited low-resolution formats, and a link to Icons8 is required. Paid monthly subscription plans start at $9 for photos, $13 for illustrations, and $29 for all graphic formats and music. The Mega Creator subscription plan is $9 per month.

3. Lexica

Source: lexica.art

Lexica is a search engine for AI-generated images. It includes images generated directly on Lexica Aperture based on the Stable Diffusion model, and also crawls the official Stable Diffusion Discord to index images from there. The platform offers reverse image search – all you need to do is to enter a URL in the search box or upload an image from your device. In addition, the interface allows you to explore ideas with a similar style, copy a prompt, or open an image in the editor to modify it by adjusting settings and revising the input text.

Pricing. With Lexica, you can use the AI image search engine for free and create up to 100 images per month with Lexica Aperture. Beyond that, there are three subscription plans, ranging from $10 to $60 per month, depending on the number of generations.

4. Unsplash

Source: unsplash.com

Unsplash is a free stock photography search engine that was acquired by Getty Images in 2021. Unsplash offers over 3 million curated images from a vast community of over 293,000 contributors. When it launched in 2013, the platform was a breath of fresh air compared to the overwhelming selection of bizarre stock images that were available elsewhere. Due to its popularity, however, Unsplash’s content has become somewhat overused. Still, it remains an invaluable resource for millions of designers and marketers.

In addition to its vast collection of free images, Unsplash also offers a reverse image search tool that allows users to find similar images based on an existing photo.

Pricing. Unsplash is a completely free service, with all images available for download and commercial use under the Unsplash License terms.

5. Pexels

Source: pexels.com

Pexels is another free stock photo and video library that offers a wide selection of high-quality, hand-picked content, and is one of Unsplash’s closest rivals. The platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to browse and download content or discover curated collections dedicated to holidays, seasons or other trending topics. Since the graphic design platform Canva acquired Pexels in 2018, the Pexels database is now available within the Canva interface.

Pricing. Pexels is completely free to use, and all images and videos are available under the Pexels License.

6. Shutterstock

Source: shutterstock.com

Shutterstock is arguably one of the most popular stock photography websites, offering a vast collection of media content. The company uses AI algorithms to predict the better performance of creative assets and recently introduced an AI Image Generator that generates unique images through text prompts.

With more than 300 million images from over 1 million contributors worldwide, Shutterstock offers advanced search settings that allow you to filter the results by image type, color, and orientation, or search for people by gender, age, ethnicity, and more.

Pricing. Shutterstock offers both subscription and on-demand pricing plans. Subscription plans start at $49 per month for 10 images.

7. Pinterest

Source: pinterest.com

Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users to discover and save ideas on a variety of topics, including design, fashion, art, food, DIY, and more. The platform offers a wide range of user-generated content, including images, videos, and graphics.

The search engine uses AI technology to categorize and curate content, allowing users to quickly find relevant ideas and inspiration. Pinterest allows users to create and save collections of content for future reference, making it one of the most popular mood board tools. In addition, Pinterest offers a feature called “reverse image search” that helps to find visually similar images, making it easier to discover new content.

However, it’s important to note that not all images on Pinterest are licensed for commercial use, and it’s the user’s responsibility to verify the licensing status and attribution information before using any content found on the platform. Therefore, we recommend that you think of Pinterest more as a source of inspiration and ideas rather than a primary source of images.

Pricing. Pinterest is a completely free service.

8. Burst

Source: burst.shopify.com

Burst is a free stock photo website powered by Shopify, an e-commerce platform for small businesses. Burst offers a wide variety of images, ranging from lifestyle and fashion to technology and travel. Burst’s images are unique, diverse, and often have a commercial feel, as the platform is focused on businesses and entrepreneurs. They can be a great choice for websites, blogs, Instagram ads, product packaging, goods, and anything else a business might need.

Pricing. Burst is completely free to use, and all images are available under the Burst license, which means you can use them for commercial projects, without attribution.

9. Death to Stock

Source: deathtothestockphoto.com

Death to Stock is a subscription-based service that delivers a curated collection of authentic photos and videos to your inbox every month. The platform offers a selection of stunning images, often with a lifestyle or storytelling theme, created by talented artists. Death to Stock’s library is not as large as that of classic stock agencies, with approximately 4.500 media assets. However, the content is far more edgy, experimental, and unique. This identity is reflected in the platform’s name, which aims to stand out from the crowd.

Pricing. Death to Stock offers both free and paid plans with content available under the Death to Stock License. The free plan offers drops with samples delivered via email, while the paid plan starts at $15 per month and offers unlimited access to the searchable collection and new media added each month.

10. TinEye

Source: tineye.com

TinEye is a reverse image search engine that crawls the web and indexes over 59 billion images.

Using image recognition algorithms, the service helps to determine where an image came from, how it’s being used, and whether modified versions of the image exist. This makes it a valuable tool for verifying the authenticity of images or finding the original source of an image, or ensuring it was properly licensed.

Pricing. TinEye is free for non-commercial use, but has paid search packages available through the API.

11. Openverse

Source: openverse.org

Openverse is an open-source search engine for free-to-use media assets, including images and audio. The platform offers a wide range of public domain and Creative Commons-licensed content.

The search engine crawls and indexes media assets from a massive web archive, including more than 300 million images from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset. Users can search for media assets by keyword or license type.

Pricing. Openverse is a completely free service, with all media assets available for download and use under the applicable license terms. Because Openverse does not verify that the images are properly CC-licensed, or that the attribution is accurate or complete, you should verify the license status and attribution information before using the content.