Where do you go for stock images?

Nat

Nat

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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...
 
I think @emp has a blog post with a bunch of free stock image sites.

Make sure you're attributing them correctly!

Dollar photo club is good. The ones that are on there seem to be available on a lot of different sites, so I imagine they're less "protected" than something like Getty, so you can probably do a reverse image search of some of the samples if you catch my drift.
 
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You can as well look for no copyright images in any search engine;
just take some time to get used with the advanced search functions.

Can also edit them with online free tools, my personal choice is sumopaint.
 
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There's like a list of 50+ free sites, problem is they are really for generic niches, boring photos. Unless you're in travel, food, etc.

I pay for all/most of mine. $160/month. It sucks but I've build up a massive collection and max out my download limits for my plan. I can download up to 750 photos a month though. One month literally provides enough stock photos for a years worth of content.

You can get mid level prem photos, but their $10-20/each. 10 images alone is $100, ouch.

Then there's ultra prem, which are around $750-$3,000 PER image, which is insane. And that's even not full ownership rights, lol.

I'm cheap though.. Look on Flickr for creative commons, there's actually a lot of great photos. You'll just have to do a lot of cropping, photo editing, etc to make them look good.
 
Can as well go the reverse route, contract:
http://search.creativecommons.org/
contract-587249__180.jpg
 
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for editing I go with GIMP it's free and fantastic.
but for finding images I go to emp's blog and go through the list
 
Crawl your target site with something like Xenu and sort all the link for images, like .jpg,.jpeg,.png and .gif. Excel's nice for this.

Then let wget download all those images. Make a simple batch command line commands with excel/oopenoffice calc wget in col 1 and the url in col 2. Combine wget+url in col 3.

Code: 
col1              col2                                                  col3
wget             http://coolstory.com/bra.jpg              =col1+col2

Paste all the wget http://site.com/pic1.jpg lines into a linux terminal and run the file with bash filename.

I've downloaded a few thousand images this way from https://unsplash.com, since they don't link to jpegs on the site, but use redirect downloads instead.

If you just let wget crawl a site, like "wget --page-requisites -v -r -l9999 -e robots=off https://unsplash.com", it will download all the crap single threadedly.
 
benl said:
Most one the free sites have been covered, but I do like http://www.stocksy.com/ for the occasional paid image, they feel much more authentic than the the bigger stock sites like istock etc
Click to expand...

Awesome site. Great photos.

On the same vein, I use: http://deathtothestockphoto.com/. It's MUCH cheaper at only $15/month and that gives you access to their entire database, which is constantly updated. And just like Stocksy, the images are authentic and real and beautiful. Well worth the $15/month.
 
Check out a browser add on called Search By Image (Chrome | Firefox). It will reverse search any image from the right-click context menu. You can search up to 20ish engines at a time, although I've found Yandex to be by far the best (great results + great layout).

Search any stock image site, find an image you like, and then use the plugin to find a crisp, clear, watermark-free version. It works about 80% of the time.
 
I got a bunch of paid plans with Envato Elements, StockUnlimited and few more.
 
I mostly use depositphoto and get the $99 for 99 image deal - can't go wrong for most jobs. Then I charge my client £10 per image :smile:
 
@Tucky Keep an eye out for the AppSump DepositPhotos deals they seem to run a couple of times each year, you can get 100 images for $50 USD.
 
Potatoe said:
@Tucky Keep an eye out for the AppSump DepositPhotos deals they seem to run a couple of times each year, you can get 100 images for $50 USD.
Click to expand...
Yes, there should be one coming up soon if they keep to the usual schedule.
 
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...

Free images are great but investing in getting ORIGINAL images can pay off many times. So this may go beyond what you're asking.

2 steps:
1) Find a stock image site -
- freepik.com
- Adobe - see here ( free for 1 month , just delete card after you get all you can)
- ShutterStock (super cheap) - view here

2) Go on Fiverr
- Find a cheap photo editor
- Get 4 to 10 images custom designed /blended from the stock content
- upload the HQ image to your site.
- Baddabing Baddaboom! Google loves new content.
- If your site's worth a few bucks, the extra traffic from being a highly rated image will be worth more than the $5 you paid over time.
 
Pixabay + Unsplash and then use the Canva.com online tool to customize that image further into a fancy looking professional featured image.
 
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