My Favorite Websites for Stock Photos
I know you’ve seen tons of beautiful websites with high def pictures and eye-catching graphics. Well, let me let you in on a little secret: tons of those photos were stock images!
*gasp*
I know, I know. It can be shocking. It’s ok to take a moment and process this revelation.
Ready for another truth bomb? Lots of web designers use stock images to help a website look more professional and legit.
*double gasp*
And if you’re DIYing your own site I recommend that you use some too. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t include pictures of yourself on your site (you definitely should), but throwing in stock images to round out your site is almost always advisable.
So where do they get all those high-quality images? And a better question - where can YOU get some too? Keep scrolling to find out more about my favorite sites for stock photos.
Why Stock Photos?
So before we jump into my favorites list I wanted to take a moment and discuss a couple reasons why you might want to include stock photos in your website.
As I mentioned before, using stock images is an easy and effective way to make your website look more professional. It can also help bulk up your site if you haven’t got the time or money to hire a photographer and get your own professional shoot (trust me I’ve been there for sure!)
Once you do have the time and money, I highly suggest getting a professional shoot done once a year to update your site with fresh photos of you, but until then sprinkling in stock photos is absolutely acceptable!
Another reason you might want to use some stock photos is to get some shots you might not have. An aerial shot of a desk with a laptop, or a beautiful, well-organized kitchen for example. Whatever your website is about, it’s super easy to find stock photos that will compliment it.
In case you’re on the fence about using stock photos, let me assure you there are plenty of sites that offer them for free. You can’t get a better deal than free! And there are plenty of photos you can use without faces in them, if that’s a concern.
Pexels
My absolute #1 go-to site for free stock photos is pexels.com. They have soooo many great photos you can search for.
You can also filter by account, so if you find a photo you like you can visit the individual account that uploaded it and likely get similar photos. I’ve found this to be a great option for getting similar shots from different angles or with the same person in photo for continuity.
Pexels also offers free videos. Say whaaaaa??? Yep, you heard me right. Free video footage you can download and use wherever? That’s crazy!
I haven’t personally used this feature yet, but I’m definitely excited to! This could be helpful for video editors or anyone needing b-roll for their video projects. It could also be a fun way to spice up your website!
Pexels also offers a discount code for 20% off sponsored photos from iStock. To be honest I think the pictures on iStock are better just because their results more closely match what I’m looking for. But you are paying for them, so I would expect a higher level of quality.
Unsplash
If I can’t find what I’m looking for on Pexels, my next search is usually on unsplash.com. Unsplash is pretty similar to Pexels, but they give you a different library of free images to choose from.
Searching the same term in Pexels and Unsplash will give you the same category of photos but they’re not the exact same images.
You might find that Unsplash is your go to with Pexels being second (or some other site altogether!) But I like having options, so I keep several sites handy.
Unsplash lets you filter by category of photos (food and drink, textures, current events, etc.) as well as searching for a specific term in their search bar. I like browsing the different categories for inspiration.
Sometimes I find things I didn’t even know I needed! I especially like the textures and patterns category to use as background or to layer with.
Burst by Shopify
One of my newer favorites is Burst by Shopify. Now, if you don’t know anything about Shopify it’s basically a website building platform designed specifically for stores (both physical and ecommerce).
Because the Shopify platform is oriented around selling products it makes sense that they integrated a stock photo library. There’s even a category for products! Burst says their library includes royalty-free photos of popular products, including ones that are commonly dropshipped from Aliexpress.
These are pretty general, but they can give you some ideas and inspiration of how you might want to shoot your own products for your online store.
The good news is that you don’t have to have a Shopify website in order to use their FREE library of images (hooray!). Burst gives you the option to download hi-res or low-res images. Personally I would recommend always going with hi-res, as you can always size them down if they end up being too big for your site.
Pixabay
The last site I’ll mention for free stock photos is pixabay.com. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, it has similar functionality to the other sites I’ve mentioned. You can filter by category or type of media (photo, video, etc.), or do a search for a specific term.
Something I especially like about Pixabay is that in addition to images and video footage they also offer music, sound effects, and GIFs. They offer TONS of free media, but there’s also an option to purchase media as well.
Just like Pexels, Pixabay offers a 20% off coupon for sponsored images from iStock. And who doesn’t love coupons?
One thing to note is that it’s fairly easy to click on photos that are NOT free, and then get disappointed when there’s no download button (I’ve done this more times than I can count!) so just be mindful of that.
Shutterstock
Ok, so the very last site I want to talk about is shutterstock.com. They do require you to have an account to download images (you can sign up for free). Most of this site is paid, so if you really like what they’re offering you’ll need to be on a paid plan.
Shutterstock does offer 5 on-demand, royalty-free images with no commitment as well as a smaller library of free media (icons, vectors, brushes, fonts, LUTs, etc.) With a free trial you are allotted 10 high-quality free photos as well.
Shutterstock also offers music and sound effects under their video production category, but in my opinion the free library is not as extensive as some others.
That’s not to say Shutterstock doesn’t have quality media - they definitely do! You’ll just need to pay for it. If you’re at a point in your business where you can afford this and it makes sense, then go for it!