Stock Photography Resources
Published April 4th, 2007 in DesignThe appearance of a website can be greatly enhanced by quality photographs and images. Fortunately, there are a number of resources online that will help you to find quality photos to use on your website, and some are even free.
The following websites provide free stock photography:
Stock.Xchng
FreeImages.co.uk
FreePhotosBank
DreamsTime
YotoPhoto.com is a search engine dedicated to helping users find free photos.
However, free is not always the best option. Sometimes you can drastically increase the quality of the photography by paying as little as a dollar for a picture. The following websites offer very low cost stock photography:
Stock Xpert
I Stock Photo
Fotolia
DreamsTime
Big Stock Photo
If you are a designer that uses a lot of images, you can get a subscription at the following websites and download unlimited photos:
Shutterstock
Comstock.com
Ablestock
Jupiter Images
Photos.com
With the resources listed above you can give your website professional-quality images for very little cost, or even free.
22 Responses to “Stock Photography Resources”
I’m surprised you didn’t mention two of my favorite stock imagery sites, istockphoto.com and luckyoliver.com. Istock offers free weekly images as well as some great video, Flash, and vector content for a reasonable price. Lucky Oliver is also an inexpensive option. Although they don’t have as many images, the search interface alone makes it a winner. A free stock site i use is morguefile.com. Again, not quite as robust as some, it’s a great place to start
Anthony,
Thanks for the feedback. You’re right, istockphoto.com is a good resource as well. I think I’ll add that to the list. I’m not familiar with Lucky Oliver. Thanks again for visiting!
Historical Stock Photos.com is a good place to get free pre-sized images for use in blogs, forums, mail, etc.
I use shutter stock, so far it is pretty good!
~ 3000 free pictures at http://freeFOTO.ca/. Creative Commons-licensed photos with keyword search. You can use the images free for websites and blogs with attribution.
how about “real” agencies, not just those which rip off photographers?
Stock images are no longer limited to strict photography. Our agency proposes royalty free 3d images and cliparts. These enable even more stunning designs.
Wow, thanks for the resources. I bookmarked all of them. I am always looking for new sources of quality material to enhance my website. Thanks again.
Good article. I’ve wrote an article about dutch stockphoto websites here:
Stockphoto websites
Regards,
Mark
Nice list. Just a note that the best stock agencies for users (ideally great images for free) are not always the best stock agencies for photographers.
Erick
I hadn’t ever heard of Yotophoto…thanks for the tip!
I (as many others do) contribute my pictures to Public Domain Pictures website you can see my portfolio on http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=87 All pictures are public domain, so you’re welcome to use them for any purpose completely for free
Good list. I am using some of them sometimes.
From myself i may add co-photo.com as a resource with free images and designbeginshere.com as the one with a big list of similiar resources.
There is still a very good resource that is worthy of getting to your list: http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm
I agree with the first guy. Glad to see you added istockphoto to the list. My business has used that site often, and its great. Though as a photographer, the proliferation of great free/inexpensive stock agency causes me to wonder about the future of the profession.
But that’s change.
Erick
Also check out http://arenacreative.com for creative RF stock images (graphics, vectors, AND photos) the collection is small, but since you are buying direct from the artist here, the prices are reduced. I sell this same collection under the rest of the above listed microstocks as well, in case you already have credits.
good list and i used them a lot..
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