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Adobe Stock is a huge library of stock photos, illustrations, graphics, icons, video clips, audio clips, templates and more, available to license and use in your creative projects royalty-free. Founded in 1995, Getty Images was the first company to license imagery online and it’s known as the giant of photo stock libraries. Used stock images for designers by many international newspapers and websites, its library features millions of stock images and illustrations, thousands of hours of video and now music 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.
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Adobe Stock is integrated into Creative Cloud subscriptions, and this means that Adobe has put a lot of work into how the service works with its suite of design tools. It claims not to be a stock photo library, which of course it is, but it tries to break the mould with images that don’t look like your typical stock photos. Subscription starts at $12 a month, which is cheaper than most other subscription-based stock photo sites, but it’s a much smaller library with photos numbering in the low thousands rather than millions. To make it easier to choose, we’ve compared the different options available to create a list of the best stock photo libraries today, including the best free stock photo sites. We’ve made our choices based on the reviews of our contributors and our own use of the sites to find photos for Creative Bloq.
Shutterstock has been expanding beyond the normal remit of a stock photo library, incorporating its own editing tools. This means that, for example, you can change the background of an image in Shutterstock rather than have to take it into a software program like Photoshop. It’s also added a text-based AI image generator so that if you don’t find an image you like, you could try to generate one using AI. Some stock libraries have prohibited AI-generated images due to concerns about copyright (see how to use DALL-E 2 for more on how the technology works).
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Note that the site does include some nudes, so you’ll probably want to ensure the SafeSearch box is checked if you’re searching for images at work. It has a strong philanthropic agenda and a commitment to giving photographers a good rate, including giving students 100 per cent of the sale of their images. Even if you’re not bothered about the philanthropic angle, you’ll probably be keen on its library of over 313 million stock images, vectors, videos and 360-degree panoramic images. Whether you need a stock photo, stunning vector image, HD video clips, or Adobe Photoshop template, Adobe Stock has the perfect stock images, videos, and more to help you tell your story.
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. With over 400 million stock photos, illustrations, music, videos and more, Shutterstock is a huge marketplace for all kinds of stock assets. The site is extremely easy to navigate, with images organised into popular categories and featuring a useful keyword search tool. To download content, a subscription or image-on-demand package is required. Updated with more than 50,000 new images daily, you’re sure to find something inspiring every time you visit. Online stock image sites have multiplied over the years and there are now a lot of options with very different pricing structures, from the best free stock photo libraries to huge premium image banks.
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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. Offset is a sub-library of Shutterstock that features high-end, curated collections of royalty-free images by award-winning photographers. This collection of images is not available on Shutterstock or vice versa and is available via a transparent and easy-to-use royalty-free license.
Unlike many other stock photography companies, Stocksy operates on a cooperative model, with its contributing artists owning a share of the company and receiving a higher percentage of the revenue from their sales. It describes itself as «an art-forward, royalty-free stock photo + video agency that makes discovering unique, beautifully authentic imagery effortless.» Royalty-free licensing starts at $15. These stock photo libraries all have good reputations, a range of quality images, and useful search tools to find what you’re looking for faster. Stock libraries can often be a good solution, and while they had a reputation in the past for cheesy, low-rent images, that’s certainly not the case anymore. Whether you’re talking about small, medium or large stock photography sites, the quality is typically very high these days. Unsplash is the largest and best-curated free stock photo library that we’ve used.
The best stock photo libraries
Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives.
- Adobe Stock is a huge library of stock photos, illustrations, graphics, icons, video clips, audio clips, templates and more, available to license and use in your creative projects royalty-free.
- Here you can get royalty-free stock photos for as little as 17p per download, as well as illustrations, videos and audio.
- We’ve evaluated the range and quality of imagery available, the ease of use and of course value.
- It’s also added a text-based AI image generator so that if you don’t find an image you like, you could try to generate one using AI.
There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. That said it adds new content, and, with its intention to avoid cliched imagery, there’s a chance you might find something more original that suits your project. Some pieces are surprisingly beautiful for stock photos, and they come in sets, so you’re not left trying to make one specific image fit the dimensions you need. Members can even vote on the most appealing ideas for new projects to be included in the future.
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Although it began as a free stock library, Death to Stock is now a membership-based service that provides you with fresh and authentic stock photos and videos. There are only 4,500+ images here, which is tiny compared to some of the major libraries, but they are really very good quality. For a subscription starting at $12 a month, you get unlimited downloads, and new work is added all the time. Some dodgy sites featuring «free» stock photos don’t always have permission to share them, putting you in danger of legal action for using these assets, even if you had the best intentions. So the safest bet is to purchase stock images from a reputable stock library instead.
Quality is not entirely consistent, but it is generally very good, and there’s a wide range of types of images – you might even find some kinds of photos you can’t find on paid sites. The best stock photo libraries are a great resource for designers who need images to incorporate into their work. Whether you’re looking for generic imagery to convey a particular situation or emotion or photos of a specific place or object, there’s a decent chance that you’ll be able to find what you need. Find images for your design projects at the best stock photo libraries, both free and premium. You’ll have to complete a Captcha to down an image, but you can skip this part of the process if you sign up for a free account. We find the quality of images to be more variable than on other stock photography sites, but there is plenty of quality here.
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