Open Pics

There are numerous online repositories for free-to-use stock photos, but their sheer number makes it difficult to find the images you need. With the right application, however, things get much easier.

Open Pics is an open-source program that gathers images from multiple sources and displays them within a single UI, while also allowing you to perform searches. It still needs improvements, but it can certainly come in handy.

We won’t list every source that has been implemented, but we can at least mention Unsplash, Pixabay, Free Range Stock and Startup Stock Photos. Many others are available, so you will certainly have lots of images to choose from.

However, it does not seem to be possible to exclude some of the sources or perform searches only on certain websites. Also, no image filters are available, as you can only search for items based on their name.

Grabbing photos is fairly simple, although it would help if the process were streamlined a bit. Sadly, it is not possible to download multiple images at once.

The photo previews are rather small, but you can open the original post in your default browser to get a better view. The application provides a link to the distribution license used by each website.

One look at the user interface is enough to tell that more work is needed in this department. It looks rudimentary, feels rather clunky and cannot be customized in any way, although you can hide the left-hand panel if you wish.

Open Pics is a useful program for those who frequently search for stock photos for their projects. It aggregates multiple online sources and allows you to search all of them at once, create albums and download images locally.