(by 1 person)
Spice up your designs with stock photography.
Whether you're a publisher, advertiser, filmmaker, designer or an artist of any kind, we need to use good photographs to communicate more effectively.
Until now quality stock photography was expensive and could only be afforded by large agencies with price tags like 2000-3000 USD per image, simply because fine photographers were expensive to hire. After the digital revolution in photography following the relatively cheaper professional equipment, more and more enthusiasts started taking high quality photographs.
Today we can purchase high quality stock images and videos for as low as 1 USD per image with a "Royalty Free" license. "Royalty Free" is a confusing term and does not mean that the image is free. It means that you pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
Here are some of my favorite places to buy stock images and footage.
Best "Royalty Free" Stock Photography Sites
All sites accept PayPal and Credit Card.
- iStockphoto.com
- Pros:
- The best service and quality.
- Best photographers.
- 1,950,000 images in database.
- Offers stock footage too.
- Offer one free image per week.
Cons.
- Prices are a bit higher than it's competitors.
- Usable images (1200x1600px) are 4 USD per image.
- Extra High-Res images are 15 USD per image.
- One credit is not one dollar.
- Minimum purchase is 10 credits for 12 USD.
- Search is not very fast, loading time is slower when compared to other services. - Dreamstime.com
- Pros:
- Best price/performance
- High resolution images are 2 credits
- One credit is one dollar
- Very fast search and load time
Cons:
- Minimum purchase is 20 credits for 19.99 USD
- Search is not as smart as iStock's
- Overall library quality is not as good as IStock's - Fotolia.com
- Pros:
- Good prices. Best resolution/price
- Minimum purchase is 10 credits for 10 USD
- One credit is one dollar
- Fast search and load time.
- Very smart search.
Cons:
- Website is not as well organized and clean as competitors. - 123 Royalty Free
- Pros:
- Good subscription prices. Download up to
5 Ultra High images daily for $89/Month
- Minimum purchase is 15 credits for 15 USD
- One credit is one dollar
- TIFF format available. 10 USD/image
- Large thumbnails. Good comp images.
Cons:
- Slow
- Website is not as well organized as the competitors. - Luky Oliver
- Pros:
- Good prices.
- Minimum purchase is 10 credits for 10 USD
- One credit is one dollar.
- Fast search and load time.
- Very nice search interface.
- Very clean site. Unformal Language.
Cons:
- Overall library size is not as large as competitors.
Conclusion
Based on my personal experience Dreamstime offers the best service in terms of pricing and resolution. My first choice is Dreamstime.But when it comes to quality of the archive, IStockPhoto beats all of its competitors. The recent change in pricing makes IStockPhoto my second choice.
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