Most uniquely, Adobe Stock is beautifully integrated into many of the most popular Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro. That means that if you’re working on a design or editing a video, you can drop in stock photos (or videos, or illustrations) to try them out first, before you decide to buy. Everything takes place within the app interface, which makes this operation quick and easy to do. Adobe Stock is our pick as the best stock photo site overall, for a number of reasons.
So the safest bet is to purchase stock images from a reputable stock library instead. And even then, you always need to read the fine print on licensing and be sure these images will be okay to use now and in future. We’re consuming 50% more information than we were several decades ago, and much of free stock photos for designers it is visual. With so much visual stimulation, the brain starts to filter what it wants to see – including filtering out all those images we’ve seen a million times before. Thankfully, stock photo sites Unsplash and Photocase have stepped in to fill the void with professional quality stock images.
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But while the quality is typically high, the prices for both subscriptions and credit packs are too. Another massive stock library, Shutterstock offers a huge variety of images, vectors, videos, VFX, templates, 3D models and music tracks for use in your creative projects. Choose between a subscription or purchasing credit packs, and you can also use the Shutterstock Editor to resize, crop, modify, save, share and publish images. There are a number of great free stock photo sites that offer high-resolution images.
It features a great selection of curated collections, organised by themes such as ‘Epic Everyday’, ‘Girl Power’ and ‘Weekend Warrior’. Stock photo websites like Photocase feature unique, high-resolution photos that you haven’t seen floating around elsewhere the web. If you’re curious just how widely used an image is, you can do a reverse image search by uploading the image in Google, and then watch the results pour in. Here are a few ways stock images elevate your marketing performance.
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The chances of each image being used repeatedly by hordes of other professional creatives are huge. Need free images for your next website design or blog post? With new photos added daily, there is a wide selection of high-quality images to fit a variety of topics. When we noticed a shortage of high-quality free stock photos available to marketers and creatives, we decided to whip up some of our own. The truth is high-quality stock photos don’t have to come hand-in-hand with a hassle or high price tag.
- In short, Shutterstock is a great service, but there’s nothing fantastic that raises it above iStock or Adobe Stock.
- That said, it’s a close-run thing, and with a good free trial offer we’d still recommend giving it a go.
- As part of that commitment, they’ve created a collection of stock photos that feature people of color in the workplace.
- With new photos added daily, there is a wide selection of high-quality images to fit a variety of topics.
- For those looking for access to more exclusive free photos, ISO Republic invites you to sign up for its email list and receive photos right to your inbox.
And while these photos are a bit more quirky (we’re talking everything from monster feet slippers to Vespas to bananas), they are entirely usable for the right project. With new photos added weekly, Gratisography is another awesome website serving up high-resolution photos covered under the Creative Commons Zero license. Brought to you by Leeroy Advertising Agency in Montreal (and its network of talented photographers), Life of Pix is home to some awesome high-resolution photos.
Is iStock or Shutterstock better?
Meanwhile, if you’re specifically seeking moving images, check our separate guide to best stock video sites. To prove it, we’ve compiled a list of awesome resources for free, high-quality stock images for websites, blogs, and similar online properties. Adobe Stock is a great alternative to Shutterstock because it offers high-quality royalty free photos and stock video footage. Its included Creative Cloud Tools integrate well with my pro photo and video apps. Founded in 2000, Dreamstime was one of the early players in the microstock business and still has an enthusiastic community supporting them, not least because it’s so cheap. Here you can get royalty-free stock photos for as little as 17p per download, as well as illustrations, videos and audio.
Amos also established the Microstock Expo Conference, a key event in the stock photography sector. Check out this link to learn how you can get 5 free credits and 10% off your Photocase order. We promise you’re going to be as enamored with Photocase as we are, and we’re pretty sure they’re going to become your go-to resource for unique, authentic images that’ll make your marketing pop.
Company
The latter are premium quality, but more expensive, while the former is cheaper but more basic. We work and produce 250+ fresh visuals monthly, expanding our platform for you. We capture the essence of what’s hot, fuelling your imagination with exclusive new gems. Everyone has the right to buy photos and videos in our platform to use FOREVER. Not only are the photos on Fancy Crave free of copyright restrictions, but they’re also pretty remarkable. All the photographer asks is that you never advertise the photographs as your own and provide attribution when and if you can.
The issue isn’t a shortage of stock photo sites, it’s that only a handful provide authentic, quality images, as opposed to the same cheesy images that have been overused to the point of nausea. If you’re buying a lot of images, that means it gets quite costly, although you can shave off some money by buying credit packs. However, if you only need a few stock photos, then it will may well save you money overall.
New Old Stock
Photos in the Essentials collection are basic, cheap and may be found on other stock sites, while Signature images are exclusive to iStock, better quality and more expensive. There’s no free trial with iStock, but it does release one free image every week, which you can download for free for a limited time. Shutterstock also doesn’t divide its photos into premium and standard qualities, and on the whole, it’s not quite as cheap as iStock. Plus of course, you’re not getting the integration into the Creative Cloud that Adobe Stock offers. That said, if you run your own WordPress website, then we can certainly recommend the Shutterstock WP plugin, which will make your life a lot easier.
Like iStock, Shutterstock offers a free image per week, as well as a free vector illustration too. Designer Jay Mantri has built up an impressive gallery of professional, quality images just for you and me … All of the photos that make the cut are under the Creative Commons Zero license, meaning that they are free for personal and commercial use with no attribution required. SplitShire offers awesome free photos for you to use without commercial restrictions. Powered by Italian photographer Daniel Nanescu, all of the images available on the website are “made with love” — and it shows.
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In terms of deal count, there have been 88 IPOs through mid-June 2024, compared to 154 in 2023. Public company mentions of AI in earnings calls are at a record high. 40% of S&P 500 discussed AI on their earnings calls this past quarter — up from 1% five years ago, according to data from FactSet. Most of these companies cite AI as a potential productivity booster rather than an additional source of revenue, and many are making substantial investments in the technology.
