Major search engines like Google and Bing have the ability to help you finding images. The problem about this kind of search engine is that they indexed any kind of image in various sizes which is not too good if your intention of finding images is for a more serious purpose. For instance, you need a high-res photo for your design project.

Google Images might has the option to filter the search results to show only high-res images. But, what about the legality of the images? Are all displayed images truly published by the creators of the images and released under the license where we are allowed to use them?.

Don’t too worry. There is a solution if you want to search for high-res images that are truly published by the original creators. There are several image search engines, other than Google Images, to assist you finding high-res images. Here is the list.

1. Photo Pin

At the first list we have Photo Pin. This image search engine will help you to discover Creative Commons licensed images for both commercial and non-commercial purpose. You can use the filter feature to narrow the search results and ease your job. Hovering your mouse over a certain image on the search results page will give you two buttons to download the image and previewing it. You can also directly check who is behind the image you are seeing.

All photos displayed by Photo Pin are taken from Flickr. Photo Pin only displays the photos while the original files are provided by Flickr. In other word, Photo Pin helps you to discover Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr since not all photos in Flickr are licensed under the Creative Commons license.

2. CC Search

CC Search is a search engine offered by Creative Commons. You can use the search engine to discover any contents that are licensed under the Creative Commons license from musics, videos to images. Making use of CC Search to discover high-res images will give you the richer results since the search engine also utilizes Pixabay as the image provider other than Flickr.

Unlike Photo Pin which displays the search results in its own page. CC Search will take you to the results page of the image provider once you hit the enter button. CC Search is currently still in beta phase but it is very decent to use.

3. Every Stock Photo

As the two image search engines mentioned earlier above, Every Stock Photo also search images from image provider sites like Flickr and similar sites. Instead of relying on a single site like Photo Pin (which rely on Flickr). Every Stock Photo also display images from other sites from Wikimedia, MorgueFile, SXU, NASA to Photi. The purpose is one, to enrich its search results.

4. Behold

Behold is another image search engine which helps you to search images from Flickr using a more specific keyword and parameters. Instead of all photos, Behold selected 1,040,000 high-res photos from Flickr which you can search for using a certain keyword you desire. The image search engine also has the option to filter the search results to show only photos that are legal when we use them for commercial purpose.

Behold displays the results page in its own page but you will be taken to the Flickr page every time you click a certain image on the search results page.

5. ShutterDial

Again. ShutterDial also utilizes Flickr to provide you high-res images. But, it uses a different method in helping you discover images on Flickr. Unlike the 4 first image search engines mentioned earlier above which help you discovering Creative Commons licensed images, ShutterDial has the different focus.

You can use the image search engine to discover images by camera settings from focal length, shutter speed and aperture. ShutterDial is a great tool for beginner photographers who want to improve their skill by taking a lesson from others technique.