Best Stock Photo Websites
Based on In-Depth Reviews

What are stock photos and why should I use them?

For as long as people have been selling products and services, they’ve had to come up with ways to market said products and services. And for the last hundred years or so, stock photos have been part of the tools available to business owners to accomplish this. Ever since the first stock photo library was established in the 1920s—and likely before then—people have been using pictures as a way to communicate what their business is about to the general public.

While in the early days of photography, almost any picture was certain to call people’s attention, today, a little more creativity is required. Modern stock photography generally aims to convey a specific feeling, rather than simply depicting various subjects or brands. To better illustrate this point, we asked Layshi Curbelo, graphic designer and host of the popular design podcast, Command Z, what sort of considerations go into choosing a stock photo. Using the very abstract concept of ‘mortgages’ as an example, she proceeded to explain that, “I wouldn’t search for photos that only showcase houses, instead I try to find photos that convey action through an emotional connection. Maybe a house with a family, a couple thinking outside of a neighbor’s house. The idea is to create a mindset and idea in the people that will see the photo.”

There are also technical considerations when choosing a stock photo such as: making sure the photo has good lighting, the angle at which it is taken, the emotions displayed by the people in the picture, and ensuring the picture has a natural quality. In Curbelo’s words, “some stock photos look really staged.”

Perhaps because the qualities that make up a good stock photo are so abstract, there is still an overabundance of “cheesy” stock photos that are commonly used by companies all over the world.  To get an idea of why this phenomenon occurs, we also reached out to José Velez, a graphic designer with 13 years of experience in the advertising industry. He explains that because advertising budgets have been steadily shrinking over the years, stock photography has become a more cost-effective alternative to a custom photo shoot. The problem with this solution, he says, is that “they all use the same sites, and since they pay yearly [non-exclusive] subscriptions it's less likely that they'll dish out the extra cash to buy the rights to a photo.” 

While using the same sites becomes inevitable for many companies, Vélez stresses the point that “designers need to be aware of competitor campaigns, so as to avoid using the same photos.” 

Aside from the more artistic details to keep in mind when choosing stock photos, there are a few technical aspects to consider when actually purchasing them. The type of project you’re working on as well as the licenses and usage rights of any given photo will determine what pictures are available to you, and how much you will end up paying for them.

Types of Stock Photos

Before you start looking for stock photos, it’s important to know which type of project you’ll be working on. There are two types of stock photo: commercial and editorial. Commercial photos are the more recognizable of the two, as they are used for anything from ad campaigns to product designs and are more likely to include the cheesy pictures stock images are known for. Editorial stock photos, on the other hand, are used exclusively for journalistic endeavors. Think of any recognizable image from legendary sports moments to historical news events, and you’re likely thinking of an editorial stock photo.

While the differences between the two are fairly straightforward, they each have specific guidelines on how they may be used:

Commercial

• May be used to sell or advertise products, services, or brands.
• Model and/or property releases must be signed if any are present.
• You can use editing software to manipulate or enhance the image.
• No logos or brands may be visible on the image.
• Can be used for any number of purposes.
• They usually communicate an aspirational concept or idea, given that they cannot directly feature products in them.

Editorial

• Don’t require releases, since the photo is not being used to sell or advertise anything.
• Can’t be heavily edited or manipulated in editing software; editorial images need to represent the truth, since they can run in a news source.
• Best used for timely, topical events or articles.

Licensing

The mere fact that you can save images from anywhere on the internet with just a few clicks does not mean that all, or even most, of them are free of charge. It’s one thing to save an image you like to use as a personal desktop background (which you shouldn't really be doing, either,) and another thing entirely if you’re planning to use said image for any sort of creative work or marketing campaign without consulting the copyright holder.

Copyright law is vast, complex, and it varies from country to country. In the context of stock photos, you should know that all creative works—be they pictures, vector images, or stock footage—are the sole copyright of their creator, and the copyright holder decides how their work may be used through a handful of different licenses:

Public Domain

Public domain licensing is fairly self-explanatory. Any photo or creative work in the public domain may be used freely, since no one person or legal entity holds its copyright. In the U.S., copyright expires 70 years after the copyright holder’s passing, starting in 1933.

In addition to the “standard” public domain designation, a copyright holder can willingly declare any of their works to be in the public domain by using a Creative Commons CC0 license. 

Royalty-free

One of the most important things about royalty-free images is not mistaking them for copyright-free ones. Under a royalty-free license, you pay once for a specified set of usage rights which allow you to use the image without additional royalty payments, so long as you use it as agreed.

In general, due to their more accessible price, royalty-free images come with a few restrictions. For example, royalty-free licenses are non-transferrable, meaning that only the person who paid for the license may use it. They also are non-exclusive, meaning that any other person or business who is willing to pay the license fee may use it in their own projects.

Furthermore, even if you have a commercial license for the image, you are not allowed to use it to create your own copyrighted material such as logos, trademarks, or design marks, given that the picture’s copyright is owned by another person. Similarly, if the picture has any models or recognizable locations visible, you are not allowed to misrepresent them in any way, defamatory or otherwise nor can you imply that they are endorsing a product or brand.

Rights-managed

Unlike royalty-free images, rights-managed images are much more specific regarding their usage. When requesting one of these images, you need to specify the dimensions of the image, the length of time it will be used for, what sort of project will it be used for, and so on. If the image is going to be used for commercial purposes, releases will have to be signed for any models or locations present, which translates to much higher prices.

Because the terms of rights-managed images are much more specific, you have to use them exactly as requested, as opposed to royalty-free images. On the other hand, RM images can often be negotiated for exclusivity, larger print runs, and in some cases, you are even able to access the image’s usage history, letting you see who has used it before and for what particular purposes. 

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that aims to build a worldwide public knowledge database, encompassing everything from works of art to scientific knowledge. One of their most well-known tools are their Creative Commons licenses, which allow copyright holders to make their work freely accessible to the public, while still allowing for basic copyright protections.

They offer six license types ranging from their CC-BY, which allows for any use of the image so long as the author is credited, to CC BY-NC-ND, which means the image can only be used as-is and cannot be used for commercial purposes. They also have the CC0 license, which is equivalent to putting your work in the public domain, releasing all copyright protections.

Attribution

Legally, any copyrighted work must be attributed to its copyright holder whenever it is used. However, attribution rules can vary greatly depending on the type of license applied. The following attribution requirements apply specifically for Creative Commons licenses, although said licenses are designed to be in compliance with most global copyright laws.

Standard Attribution: image can be used freely as long as the artist is credited.

Attribution Share Alike: Same guidelines as Standard Attribution, with the caveat that any derivative works must be licensed under Creative Commons.

Attribution No Derivatives: the image can be redistributed freely, even for commercial purposes, but no variation or derivative works can be made.

Attribution Non-Commercial: the image cannot be resold or used for commercial purposes.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike: the image cannot be used for commercial purposes, but it may be modified or used in derivative works, so long as they are licensed through Creative Commons.

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives: the image cannot be used commercially and cannot be modified. It may, however, be redistributed freely as-is.

Indemnification

Indemnification is legal protection against legal liability, specifically the misuse of stock assets, in this case. Whichever stock website you choose, make sure that their terms and conditions include an indemnification clause that protects you in the event that you use a picture that was uploaded without the author’s consent. Indemnification does not protect you, however, if you breach the terms of the image’s license.

Technical Information

Image Resolution Matters

After you’ve found the right image and considered every other detail, there is one last thing to keep in mind before you pay for the image license: Is the image in the correct resolution for your project?

Though it may seem like a minor nitpick, choosing the wrong resolution for a stock photo can affect you in a number of ways. The first is fairly obvious, choosing an image that’s too small or too large will mean that your project won’t look as good as it could. Small images look blurry when enlarged and large images suffer loss of quality if made too small.

Photos by Shivam Patel, Pexels.com

Although any graphic designer worth their salt will be able to shrink larger images while avoiding the loss of quality issue, there is also the matter of cost to consider. In many cases, a larger image resolution translates to a higher price, and it makes no sense paying for an overly large image, when a smaller, more affordable version would suit you just as well.

Lastly, you need to be mindful of the medium in which the image will be published, whether it be print, digital, or even mobile platforms such as Instagram. Online and print images use similar, but distinct resolution formats which could impact the look of the final product. By default, images you find on a stock photo website will be described with their pixel dimensions, such as 800x600. However, if you are considering a print format, you want to make sure that you can identify the pixels per inch (PPI) or dots per inch (DPI) resolutions of said image when translated to a page, poster, or billboard.

Ideally, you want printed images to have a resolution of 300 PPI if you want a crisp image, although 150-200 PPI will produce “good enough” results. To determine the PPI of any given image, you first have to consider what size you want the final product to be. For example, say you want to print 5” x 7” flyers at 300 PPI. In order to produce the desired resolution, you can multiply the PPI by the page dimensions, which in this case means your image needs a pixel resolution of 1500x2100.

There is one exception to these specific resolution requirements, which are vector images. Unlike traditional images, vector images are not rendered using pixels, but rather mathematical formulas. This means that they can be resized freely without impacting the image quality because the information required to render them depends on the distance between lines, rather than the number of pixels in the original image. The main limitation of vector images is that they are better suited to illustrations with easily identifiable lines and colors rather than photographs, as real life subjects are often more visually intricate and nuanced than logos or stylized illustrations.