I've seen more than one person think the term royalty-free means they can use the image for free. It does not. It means you pay one price for the use of the image, within the confines the copyright holder sets for whichever license you happen to purchase. NOT FREE.
That doesn't mean there aren't places you can get actual free images to use. There are many sites that offer legitimately free images.
That does mean that images you get from stock photo sites like Dreamstime, Deposit Photos, iStockphoto, Bigstock, and the others have to be paid for before you can use them. BEFORE YOU USE THEM. That means you can never publicly display their watermarked images. NEVER. Even if the image is one they offer for free, you have to download the non-watermarked image to use, not their watermarked one. It may seem like it's not a big deal, but some of these sites are very protective and will come after you. An innocent mistake is only innocent the first time. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse.
Please do your research. Respect the artist's copyright.