9 Top Sites for Stock Photos
Stock photos are what every blogger is looking for. Not everyone has the time (or the talent) to go out with a camera and take snapshots of something that is relevant to the topic they wrote about that day.
This is where stock photos come in handy.
Whether free or paid, there are a whole lot of websites out there offering up photos for you to take and use as needed. Some are worth visiting, and some are definitely worth passing up on. Rather than wasting hours in front of your computer trying to figure out which site is worth your time and which isn’t, we’ll tell you which photo sites are worth your while.
Stock.xchng
If you are looking for a website with high image quality, top image selection and good customer service, then is the stock photo site for you. The one thing that has been a negative factor to the site is that many complain about the website design, but that’s besides the point. They have excellent photos and a whole lot of them.
The selection to some may be a bit lacking in some categories, but it is varied. This along with the poor site lay out may confuse a lot of users, but if you have the time to focus and navigate through the site, then you shouldn’t have any problem finding what you want.
Stockvault
Stockvault.net has been around since 2004 and is one of the top free stock photos sites on the web. With over 26,000 free images at your disposal, you will be hard pressed to not find the one that is right for your website or blog. There are a number of different categories to choose from (such as 3D renders, animals, graphics and natural objects) and the site is fairly well laid out so it’s easy to search.
MorgueFile
Don’t be so turned off by the name. Morguefile may not have the same selection as Flickr (a website which you can very easily get lost on), but it still has a huge database offering a number of great images that you can use for your blog or website. You can search the images easily by size, date, rating, category, keyword, color, users or geotag. Being able to filter by the color is particularly nice, as you can easily find something that will look nice with your blog and match the topic that you have written about.
It’s easy to download, the images do not require attribution, and it’s easy to use. How can you go wrong?
Everystockphoto
Everystockphoto isn’t so much an actual site for stock photos as it is a search engine to help you locate the photos you need, and on what site. This site will also allow users to rate and “tag” photos.
The interface is user friendly, there are a wealth of photos that you can find through here which are located on numerous different stock photo sites (several of which you would have never heard of) and they have great customer service too if you ever need it. Membership is totally free as well, and development is now underway in looking at adding more feature and increasing its indexing capabilities. Within a few years, this website is going to be the “be all, end all” for searching for stock photos on the web.
iStockphoto.com
iStockphoto.com is definitely the most popular stock photo website that is out there today. Why? Because it has literally everything that you need for your blog or your website. You can use a ton of free photos to completely change your entire site and give it a facelift if you wanted to. There are the royalty free stock photos, but you can also find audios, videos, flash animation, and a whole lot more to add to your website.
Even if you did choose the “paid” route for iStockphoto, it would most likely be worth your money. The rates are incredibly affordable (thanks to its popularity) so you would be only paying very little more for a higher quality image or video.
Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com is one of the paid stock photo websites out there, but with a claim like being the world’s largest subscription-based photo agency, what do you have to lose?
This website does have an amazing collection of images that vary in numerous forms, patterns and styles, meaning that no matter what you are looking for there’s a good chance you will find it here. There’s also a good chance that what you find will be so unique that it will capture the attention of those who visit your website or blog.
There are a number of different subscription plans that you can choose from and you can choose which is right for you.
Gettyimages.com
Though Gettyimages.com is a newer website compared to most stock photo websites, what really makes it attractive is just how easy it is to use. Not only that, but it also has a number of really great and unique images that are from a number of different fields: from technology to travel, from biotech to business. There are also some more high quality video clips that can easily be added to any website or blog. They have a lot of royalty free videos as well, and the music store has a lot of great tunes that are easy to incorporate into your own site.
Freedigitalphotos.net
Freedigitalphotos.net is another royalty free website that has a whole lot of different photos available for you to peruse and to use. There are thousands of these images on the site as well as illustrations available, but do be aware that they are all in different resolutions.
But hey, when it’s free, can you really complain? This is a good site for those who aren’t too picky about the resolution of their images, and who have a lot of time on their hands to go through at least a few images before they settle on the right one for their site.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime is of the cream of the crop site for premium stock photos. It’s also what we use. It has both free photos and paid ones. We buy in bulks, hundreds of stock photos a time because there’s a significant quantity discount. Specifically, Dreamstime has a monthly subscription service that’s quite a bit cheaper than say iStockPhoto.