Where do you go for stock images?

I know many have posted on here many free stock images sites. But, if I am willing to invest what would be the best? Can't be too expensive like paying per images and stuff. I follow some PoD guys on youtube and they talk about this deal, is it bad idea to buy this? Some guy said they have exact copy of yayimage FAQs and how he was worried that this company might not be around in the future. I am wanting to buy the 148$ lifetime deal. They seem to have the same images as YAYImages.

42e0946eea9aa29fc456e64b09a2819b.png


Also, yes I am aware of Canva Pro and no I don't want those images, I prefer something different/not many bloggers use. High-quality images definitely give you more of a competitive edge.
 
I'd be careful with free stock websites tho. There are no checks to verify if someone is actually the creator of something. And yes some have been sued for using images from them (https://www.diyphotography.net/phoo...er-using-a-photo-he-downloaded-from-unsplash/)

I'd pay for them an have piece of mind. If I 100% must use a free stock picture I take a screenshot of it and save it on a spreadsheet. Just in case.
 
Nice list! Saving this.
But again, one has to be careful with the free stuff like Pixabay and co (See above for lawsuit)
 
I wait for AppSumo to release some deal and then buy that.

Depositphotos is pretty good as is 123rf.com for the price.

There are definitely better, such as istockphoto.com, but its too expensive.

These days, I use illustrations more than stockphotos and for that I use Vectorstock.com
 
I do Adobe Stock. Register for the free trial, download 40 images, then end the trial. If you have multiple CCs (which shouldn't be an issue really) you are golden.
 
Envato Elements, it's like $200 a year or something, unlimited image downloads, videos, audio, templates for errthing you could imagine, all sorts of goodies.

I used to do the deposit photos/appsumo dance like my man @bernard, that's a good option too.
 
What do people do to their stock photos to make Google see them as unique? Crop, filter, overlay text?
 
Darth said:
What do people do to their stock photos to make Google see them as unique? Crop, filter, overlay text?
Click to expand...
Do we care if Google sees them as unique? I don't care. I'm not trying to rank in Google Images. I'm trying to rank in Google Search. I've entertained the idea that Google cares about this for Search, but ultimately my conclusion is they don't, not even a little bit.

And if I'm trying to increase my scale, the last thing I want to spend time on or pay someone to do is tinker with images in this way. I can imagine a scenario where people are trying to fool the new "review posts need picture showing they used the product" algorithm or manual reviewers. But for run of the mill stuff, I see no reason to bother with this.

However, if you're "borrowing" an image you'll probably want to do this and remove the metadata so other people can't find copies of the image you borrowed, but I wouldn't do it with any concern about Google.
 
Writer_Guy said:
If I am not wrong, creative commons-licensed images require you to give attribution.

Does using such images with a link back to the source affect a page's SEO in any way?
Click to expand...

Don't think so. You can have the link as a no follow and that's that.

Ryuzaki said:
Do we care if Google sees them as unique? I don't care. I'm not trying to rank in Google Images. I'm trying to rank in Google Search. I've entertained the idea that Google cares about this for Search, but ultimately my conclusion is they don't, not even a little bit.

And if I'm trying to increase my scale, the last thing I want to spend time on or pay someone to do is tinker with images in this way. I can imagine a scenario where people are trying to fool the new "review posts need picture showing they used the product" algorithm or manual reviewers. But for run of the mill stuff, I see no reason to bother with this.

However, if you're "borrowing" an image you'll probably want to do this and remove the metadata so other people can't find copies of the image you borrowed, but I wouldn't do it with any concern about Google.
Click to expand...

How do you go about removing the meta data? If you could point me in a direction that would be great. Wasn't able to find much on Google, unfortunately.
 
Upsilon said:
How do you go about removing the meta data? If you could point me in a direction that would be great. Wasn't able to find much on Google, unfortunately.
Click to expand...
The easiest way is to use an image file size optimizer that strips it out. Two that I use in my daily life that both strip metadata are ImageOptim and Kraken.io. Kraken has a wonderful API and a Wordpress plugin to connect to it to save you time and effort.
 
Ryuzaki said:
The easiest way is to use an image file size optimizer that strips it out. Two that I use in my daily life that both strip metadata are ImageOptim and Kraken.io. Kraken has a wonderful API and a Wordpress plugin to connect to it to save you time and effort.
Click to expand...

I was using ImageOptim and didn't even know about this function. Very reassuring to know it does this. Thanks!
 
Nat said:
I need images for my website, and I don't have the means to use photoshop, etc.

Where do you get your images from? (without running into legal problems)
Preferably free images...
Click to expand...
I occasionally use some of the free sites mentioned here, but also have a couple sites that need images I know won't get me into trouble. I've had a subscription to Adobe Stock for a while, but only get a set number per month with that. I recently bought a year subscription to jumpstory.com - unlimited photos from a pretty good selection, and supposedly has "global insurance" so that you never get dinged for unlicensed photos. I got a code somewhere so it worked out to $15/mo - worth it to me.
 
Twice a year Depositphotos Appsumo deal is back on. (100 images for 39 bucks.)

For backfill images, I can usually get everything I need there and rarely have to go to a more expensive source.
 
I also use the Appsumo deal for Depositphoto. They're running this promotion right now, so I just stocked up again.

For creative images (backgrounds etc.) I like Creative Fabrica and Designbundles. Cheap and they also have free stuff that comes with a commercial license.
 
DeviantArt has a lot of stock images. Unsplash is also a good site I found recently.
 
Another upvote for DepositPhotos and the AppSumo deal. I also find some decent stuff on Vecteezy and Pixabay sometime but the free sites aren't the same.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back