I spent a visit to some hidden, abandoned houses the last days, and beside a lung full of fresh air I brought a memory card full of photographs with me, of which I will make the one or the other available here as free royalty-free images, the first set of textures featuring pretty handmade bricks.
If you need more stock images of brick walls, check here.
The previously posted rust metal backgrounds and grunge textures became quite popular, so assuming that you designers need this sort of stuff, here are some more free royalty-free images of that kind:
A classic, burst rust bubble (my engineer friends get really excited about this sort of damage). These stock photos were not sharpened, so you may want to apply a little bit later in your Photoshop designs.
Download these grunge textures by clicking on the pics here and use them as royalty-free images in your creations but please don´t re-distribute or re-sell the photographs themselves (I want to keep the licensing terms as liberal and simple as possible.)
Another close-up photo of a nice orange rust bubble with a grunge paint background.
Today some cake pictures to continue the series of royalty-free images of food. And sorry, I don´t have the recipes at hand, but you came most likely not here for that, but to get some background textures for your designs. Try this one - a close-up photo of a fruit cake made from organic apricots:
Or these two stock images of a plum cake:
All of them very different, but delicious… In early summer, my favourite is surely this homemade strawberry cake:
And colorful it is, too (but quite a demanding subject to photograph). Download hi-res images by following the links in the low res pictures.
As this web site is not just about stock textures but free royalty-free images in general, today I picked some still-life photos of books. Actually, properly cropped they are easily usable as backgrounds (and the third looks even good as a desktop background). The books in these photos are quite old, btw., which makes their colors and textures even more interesting. If I see that you like them (some stuff here gets downloaded quite a bit - thanks to everybody who sent a link!) I will take and post some more images like that. A little reminder: Use the stock photos posted here freely in your design projects, blogs and web sites, but please, don´t re-distribute the images as such. Beside that, enjoy the material provided here and feed your design ideas.
Number one, a close-up photo of a pile of old books:
Download the higher resolution files by clicking on the pics.
Royalty-free photo number two: A still life image of a pile of antique books:
And number three, the background / close-up picture / paper texture:
They may seem a bit strange, but as I have a fancy for old, weathered wood, and spend a good amount of time in alpine landscapes photographing it, and as some of that makes interesting backgrounds and textures, I thought I will prepare another set of royalty-free stock photos (and let people download them for free). As a designer you probably have the one or the other use for it.
Two old wood textures:
A lighter colored background:
And two rather abstract photos of piles of wooden sticks used for farming:
Mediterranean markets are usually full of delicious things, and if one does food photography and has a decent kitchen to mess around in, too, it makes for an inspiring source of colorful textures and abstract backgrounds. So I decided to select some pictures of dried fruits as free royalty-free images and post them here for you designers. See what you can do with it. The first two stock photos are close-up shots of dried dates:
Perhaps food photos are not yet often enough used as abstract backgrounds and textures in designs, considering that basically every human being has a very physical relationship with edible things and is naturally appealed by them. And the possible color schemes are almost endless. (In fact, a lot of trend colors are regularly named after food or botanicals, so the influence always was and is clearly there).
Anyway, a quite colorless picture of dried figs (they were as sweet as they look):
By the way, I´m going to repeat myself here, but in order to download high res photos click on the low-res pics. (Or download those if you just want to post them on your food blog, and the size is sufficient and suits better.)
If you are looking for an orange background, try this image of dried apricots:
Today a set of royalty-free food stock photos. Because this web site is slow to load with all these images on the front page, but I don´t want to change the layout, I will split certain themes with lots of pictures into several posts in future (so come back the next days to download more).
If you run a cooking or recipe blog, you can probably do with the following food stock images:
A display of onion and other vegetables on a market. (Click for high res photo). Related, a background of red onion:
(In case you are new here, you can download these stock photos under a free royalty-free license, see terms of use at the bottom of the page).
A cabbage image:
And a rf background with red potatoes, close-up photograph:
Plus a potato photo in vertical orientation:
Todays set of royalty-free stock photos consists of four wood textures (well, sort of, but they probably all make a good addition to a designers background archive).
Image number one, an oak wood texture:
Stock photos number two and three are close-up / macro shots of some tree bark:
And texture number four: A macro photograph of cork:
We had some recent searches for WATER STOCK PHOTOS and IMAGES OF WATER DROPS, so, here are some, which perhaps make some useful abstract textures for your designs (and work well as backgrounds):
From the same series of water images:
And a macro photo of a water drop splash (a royalty-free stock image classic… but they are still fascinating):
Plus another abstract background, a water texture consisting of air bubbles:
The last one for today, something botanical - a macro photo of water drops on a leaf:
Update: I forgot to include the sparkling water image - if you are looking for some abstract blue background either for your designs, your web site or your desktop, try this one:
After all the textures posted here recently, I should perhaps have some images again even my great-aunt could recognize as a photograph, because, after all, this web site is not just about free textures but free royalty-free STOCK PHOTOS, so today, and just in time for the weekend, some gourmet coffee pictures:
A still life image of an espresso coffee cup and a water glass. Perhaps I will open a new category called FOOD STOCK PHOTOS at some point, as there shall be many more food and beverage related pictures in the future.
The same scene, but in vertical orientation:
If you are into gourmet coffee and espresso makers, you will probably like the following picture:
Download the hi-res photos by clicking on the low-res pics, and make some nice coffee-related designs and web sites out of it…