Because they supply instant access to a wide variety of media, stock photography websites can be an invaluable ally for anyone in need of affordable content fast.
Let’s take a deeper look into the best stock photo sites.
Three benefits of Stock Photography:
- Stock photographs give a visual aspect to your writing, making it more appealing and interesting to readers.
- They can help to illustrate a certain subject and break up long passages of writing.
- Stock images can help you build brand authority and showcase professionalism.
Even if it’s your first time buying stock images, a web search might easily overwhelm you with the amount of Stock photography website providers out there.
The best sites to find stock photos:
- Depositphotos – The Best Budget-friendly Plans
- Alamy – The Best Collection of Unique Stock Images
- Adobe – The Best Stock Photo Website for Designers and Creatives
- iStock – The Best Premium Stock Photo Site
- Shutterstock – The Best Commercial Use Stock Photo Site
- Picfair – The Best Stock Photo Site for Supporting the Artist
Here we’ll look at where to find the best stock photos.
These premium stock picture websites often provide photographs of greater quality than those found on free stock image websites.
Because these images are generally paid for, they are more exclusive, which means you will be able to identify your website or article etc from the crowd.
If you’ve landed on this article and haven’t yet used stock photography before, then that could be about to change!
Let’s look in more depth at where to find stock photos.
Depositphotos – The Best Budget-friendly Plans
Depositphotos has a lot to offer and is really worth considering for your stock photography needs.
The company’s enormous and ever-expanding archive of photographs, graphics, and films is also a solid indicator that it is doing well and investing in its expansion.
Furthermore, the fact that you may trial their service before committing to buying further stock images sends a clear message that the organisation is confident in its service.
Depositphotos have excellent low prices and an easy-to-use website.
Depositphotos appear to be a strong contender in the stock photography scene and will be around for the long haul.
Alamy – The Best Collection of Unique Stock Images
Alamy has been around in the stock photography game for a long time.
Appearing to have significantly stricter criteria, Alamy makes it more difficult to become a contributor and set up a quality collection.
This means as a buyer, you know you are only getting the best of the best!
The interface is not as user-friendly as that of some of the other agencies, but the quality of its content more than makes up for this.
Adobe – The Best Stock Images Website for Designers and Creatives
The key point is that Adobe Stock is completely integrated into the Adobe Creative Cloud platform.
Therefore, creators have the ability to contribute to Adobe Stock via the Adobe platform (think Lightroom and Photoshop) so they can start to earn royalties from their images with very little work.
According to Adobe over 90% of the world’s creative professionals are using some form of the Adobe Creative Cloud.
This means you get a better variety of stock images on offer with Adobe.
Adobe lets you buy stock images subscriptions with the download volume that works best for you, or you can get credits to download photographs later at your leisure.
They offer relatively low pricing, and an extended license is also available on demand.
iStock – The Best Premium Stock Photo Site
iStock began offering royalty-free stock pictures online more than 20 years ago.
Their main offering lies in their photo collection, which is divided into two major tiers: non-exclusive affordable photographs and exclusive high-end images.
You may buy photographs here with a subscription plan or with credit packs to download on-demand, depending on how many images you need.
In the event of an extended licence, they have various alternatives, all of which are accessible on-demand. In every situation, you will get reasonable costs and high-quality pictures.
iStock is the place to go if you want to find more original photographs with a greater visual value.
Shutterstock – The Best Commercial Use Stock Photo Site
With good reason, Shutterstock is a household brand in the stock photo industry.
This stock photography website was one of the first to provide a stock photo membership service, and it also has what is perhaps the largest stock image library on the web, with over 370 million images, videos and music tracks.
Its membership plans and stock picture packs are quite reasonable, and it also sells photographs with extended licences on-demand.
If you want nearly any image possible at the stroke of a button, this is the agency for you.
Picfair – The Best Stock Photo Site for Supporting the Artist
Every image licenced through Picfair contributes to the industry’s levelling of the playing field.
They advertise themselves as the only picture licencing platform that gives photographers ultimate control over their fees. Other agencies take a 50-85 percent share when a creator’s image sells.
Picfair allows creators to set their own rates, receive 100% of what they ask for, and then Picfair adds a 20% charge to the buyer’s final purchase.
As Picfair photographers set their own pricing for their images, licence charges vary based on the photographer and how they want to value their work.
Picfair is for you if you actually care about supporting the creators of the stock items you buy!
Conclusion
Stock photography website agencies have allowed millions of photos to be easily accessible worldwide.
For a decent price you can get excellent content that will meet your needs at any of the websites mentioned above.
If you were wondering where to find stock photos, hopefully this article has pointed you in the right directions.
Pay close attention to the licence terms, especially for royalty-free photos. Always read the licencing conditions!
Creating content is incredibly time consuming, consequently making stock photography websites an invaluable resource to have at your fingertips.
Just bear in mind that although everyone wants as much as possible for as little as possible, there are real people out there creating this content.
If you are able to support a creator by buying directly then I’m sure the photographer would appreciate this.
Are you in the United Kingdom and looking for a specific image? Get in touch so I can see if I have anything that matches what you’re looking for!
Visit this article if you’re wondering where to sell your own images!
DISCLOSURE: I may earn a small commission from some of the links above. For the benefit of the doubt, please assume all links might be affiliate links.
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