
Stock Photos That Don’t Suck - Redsprows
https://medium.com/design-ux/62ae4bcbe01b
======
emw
Wikimedia Commons has a large set of curated, high-quality, free photographs:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures),
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Quality_images](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Quality_images).

There are also many, many gems among the 20+ million other free images at
[https://commons.wikimedia.org](https://commons.wikimedia.org).

The site has an extensive category system that complements keyword-based
search, e.g.
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fruit](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fruit).

~~~
notatoad
note that a large portion of the wikimedia commons is licenced under some
terms requiring at least attribution. Make sure you're checking the licence
before you use images from the commons.

(not saying you shouldn't use wikimedia commons, it's a great resource. just
don't use it blindly)

------
salimmadjd
I have few issues with this post:

1 - The quality of images are not that good. Some are okay, but overall not
that good.

2 - Many microstock sites have large volume of decent looking images and you
can always find something decent.

3 - You end-up spending more time on these sites trying to find a decent image
than you save money.

4 - Photography (quality) is arts and craft. Because of the higher supply the
price have come down but they still need to make money.

5 - Model release? Just looking at one of the sites [1] one of the images had
a photo of a skater [2]. I'm not sure if the skater had given a model release
or not. But at least with more reputable stock sites you know there is always
a model release required.

[1] [http://unsplash.com/](http://unsplash.com/)

[2] [https://s3.amazonaws.com/ooomf-com-
files/7erBZvZMQ2mmuFQ10vc...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ooomf-com-
files/7erBZvZMQ2mmuFQ10vcA_IMGP4512.jpg)

edit: formatting

~~~
jayvanguard
I thought in general the technical execution was quite good, but they tend to
be over processed like 90% of all photography on the web.

> 3 - You end-up spending more time on these sites trying to find a decent
> image than you save money.

This is the real kicker. I found the same with stock icons and vectors. You
might get lucky with the free stuff but if you have any needs that aren't
completely generic you are better off going to a paid side, spend $20, and
save yourself a ton of time.

------
semerda
Looking at some of the links on this site to supposed "stock photos that don't
suck".. they are just awful in quality. Many are underexposed, poorly composed
& out of focus. Also some of those sites ask for an email address so they can
spam me with few pics they select every week. I just want to find a pic today
that I want not something sent to me what someone else wants. Just awful.

Having been an istockphoto photographer/contributor since 2005, I can tell you
that to be an istockphoto or getty photographer/contributor the bar is high.
You need to pass a photography test and every photo uploaded is scrutinized by
pros so it doesn't suck. So that it's exposure, framing, quality etc is top
notch. Therefore guaranteeing quality at a price.

If you want free photos, you have a better chance of finding ok photos on
flickr. When you find one you like contact the photographer and ask if you can
use their photo giving them credit on your site. Just be careful with faces in
a photo. Sites like istockphoto force all photographers to sign a Model
Release form which means no surprises for the people appearing in a photo.

------
instakill
Unfortunately, free stock photos do suck.

I've known about unsplash and most of the other resources for a while. This
weekend I needed to find some images for a landing page I was creating.

The photos you find on websites like death to the stock photo are better
quality than most pictures any of us will take. They also have that hipster
feel that a lot of start-ups go for with their visual communication. The
problem, as semerda has already mentioned is that you have to wait periods at
a time to get a small collection of photos. Unless you are extremely lucky,
none of those photos will match what you require.

The other problem is that ostensibly, photographs with people and face convert
far better than images of landscapes or abstract imagery, which is what most
of these websites provide. If they do happen to have people then the
uncertainty of release is in question (again, already mentioned in this
thread).

Searching for good photographs is really hard. Especially if you don't want to
lax your visual requirements. I ended up spending 4 hours searching for a good
image to use on Fotolia, a professional paid-for service. If I stuck to free
services, I'd still be searching.

What DOES suck about stock photography is understanding the licensing with
paid-for sites. A lot of it seems riddled with ambiguity and legalese. For
instance, the photos I paid for yesterday - I downloaded them but wasn't asked
to provide a domain. Should I be expecting a copyright infringement notice
when their bots scan my website? I'll then have to prove I bought the license
to use that image. A bit of an inconvenience and sometimes a scary affair.

Another thing that sucks is the ubiquity of white people in stock images.
Being in South Africa, and trying to serve the South African market as my
primary market, I wanted to find great photos of black people. I'll tell you,
it's not easy. Also, comparing about 100 photos, I can anecdotally say that
images of black people usually cost less credits than those of white people.

What I do think they are great for is imagery to use for blog posts. I often
use them [1] for blog posts that I write. Just shell out some money for paid
photography if you're serious about using photos properly.

[1] [http://blog.mybema.com/2014/04/10/improving-Mybema-test-
suit...](http://blog.mybema.com/2014/04/10/improving-Mybema-test-suite-time-
by-53-percent/)

~~~
jayvanguard
They also tend to be tagged poorly while on the paid sites the owners are
highly incented to properly tag the pictures to increase search hits.

------
dirtyaura
Resembles an older post by Dustin Senos with almost the same list and the
title.

[https://medium.com/design-ux/62ae4bcbe01b](https://medium.com/design-
ux/62ae4bcbe01b)

~~~
dang
Uh oh. It really does look like [1] is ripping off [2]. They've reordered the
list a bit and added a couple.

If all other things were equal, [1] might be slightly more substantive. But
not if they ripped off another post. HN has a strong bias in favor of original
sources (and simple fairness!) so I think we'd better change the url. If
anyone wants to make a case for the opposite, we can always change it back.

[1] [http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-
suck/](http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-suck/)

[2] [https://medium.com/design-ux/62ae4bcbe01b](https://medium.com/design-
ux/62ae4bcbe01b)

Edit: there is other, much more obvious blogspam at [1], so I think this is
the right call. Thanks dirtyaura.

------
Theodores
I watch TV and I believe that the ethnic mix of people on TV (in the UK) is
fairly representative of the mix you would find on the train going in and out
of London.

I look at marketing material prepared with stock images and fashion
catalogues. What do I see? Lots of white faces. Maybe there is a picture in
there somewhere of some black girl playing with young Tarquin (who is
obviously white). The word 'tokenism' springs to mind.

I don't believe most people care less about what colour people are, however,
if you use a lot of stock photography, step back, look at the body of your
work and wonder why all the faces are white. It happens. Sometimes all the
images that are supplied are of white people, yet you may not notice this
until, for some random reason, you get a person of colour showing up. Then the
'98% white' trend is revealed.

The thing is that not everyone wants to be white. People might want to be
young, thin, beautiful, with a full head of well groomed hair - that is
aspirational. So you can keep the old, fat and ugly people out of the
marketing material - that is fine. But to consciously or otherwise end up with
only white faces is where TV was more than a generation ago. We should have
moved on, perhaps even more so than TV as the internets is global rather than
parochial.

~~~
null_ptr
I don't see why young faces everywhere is all right. Racism is horrible, _and
so is ageism_.

Nobody is physically young forever and you can't help that - being young is
definitely _not_ aspirational (and neither is a head full of hair, by the
way). You can't work hard and "earn" your youth, or "earn" your hair. Physical
fitness is another thing though, and a person doesn't have to look young in
order to look healthy and attractive.

~~~
mildtrepidation
I don't understand the outcry at "ageism" in advertising. The point of
advertising is to address your _target audience_ , not _everyone_.

The vast majority of products simply do not cater to every demographic. Racism
might at least be reasonably considered inappropriate unless you're marketing
a product that specifically targets some races and not others, but ageism?
It's highly likely that whatever it is you're advertising does have a well-
defined audience in terms of age.

This is just another rung on the political correctness ladder. Expecting
everyone to include every possible demographic in every conceivable
advertising campaign is idiotic.

Making it about "what people want to be" (from GP) misses the point as well.
If you're not aiming your advertising at your target demographics, you are
failing either yourself or your client. That's not discrimination; it's
business. Discrimination is "you're not pretty, you don't get a discount or
aren't allowed to use this service."

~~~
jakobe
If it's just about target audience, then I wonder why all these companies seem
to target detergents / toothpaste / toilet paper exclusively to 25 year
olds...

~~~
PeterisP
In addition to the habit-forming age (if cigarette users are aged 16-60,
rational advertising would target 16, not 60), a point is that you don't show
your target audience as they _are_ , but you show your target audience as they
_wish to be_.

If you target average 65 year old women, then you show gray-haired above-
average-health 55-year women.

If you target average 45 year old men, then you show slim (but not too slim)
fit (but not too fit) 38 year old men - that might plausibly be average 45
year old men, but are very much skewed towards the idealized goal.

If you target very overweight people, then you show people that are visibly
overweight, but particularly good looking for that weight.

That's what works best, that's how homo sapiens are most receptive to be
influenced.

------
glenda
I wouldn't say that a photo like [0] sucks any less than something like [1] at
all. In fact the images listed on
[http://littlevisuals.co/](http://littlevisuals.co/) are just plain bad imho.

The only difference I see is that the images listed in this article come with
'filters' already applied. I think for most use cases this is actually a
negative; I would never consider using an image like that for something
serious - it comes off as really cheesy, even more-so than the shutterstock
photos. At least with those I am in control of the post-processing.

[0] [http://designrope.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/stock-
photo...](http://designrope.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/stock-photo-
hero-1000x600.jpg)

[1]
[http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/637321/1...](http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/637321/104276468/stock-
photo-winter-landscape-in-the-matterhorn-104276468.jpg)

~~~
_dark_matter_
I would like to point out that you are assuming the person using these photos
is able to post-process in such a way as to make them more presentable for
their purpose. For many people this is not the case - they don't actually know
how to make the images better. I would argue that for them, these kinds of
sites are a great benefit and make their lives much easier (and cheaper).

Secondly, using one photo from each is hardly representative of the whole.
Many of the simple stock photos that are found can be rather cheesy.

------
sejje
I built a search engine for flickr CC images. Most of them require attribution
(the license is up to the photographer).

Flickr's search is not perfect (it is based on "interestingness" over
relevance), but after a page or two typically the results are passable.

It provides some nice default attribution HTML. Basically I was just
scratching my own itch. YMMV.

[http://imager.io/](http://imager.io/)

~~~
logikblok
This is really neat thanks for sharing.

------
MichaelApproved
I've always wondered what the copyright law was surrounding these sites.

These sites get submissions from artists who are granting them a license to
distribute and offer these images royalty free. Great.

But what if an artist uploads an image to which they don't actually own the
copyright. I presume that these sites are protected under copyright laws
because they're not liable for content distributed on their networks but what
happens to the person who used the image? I understand that they wouldn't be
protected and still be liable.

~~~
moron4hire
Well, the site would have to react to any DMCA takedown notices immediately,
but wouldn't be liable for any infringement (so-called "safe harbor" rule).

But you ask a very good question with regards to the spread from there. I
suppose, as long as you complied with an cease-and-desist orders, you'd be
demonstrating a good-faith ... aaah, I'm just throwing words at a screen now.
I'm not a lawyer. The law is often arbitrary and confusing from my
perspective.

 _Caveat emptor_ seems to always be on order.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _but wouldn 't be liable for any infringement_ //

You're apparently assuming the sites are all hosted in USA, not an entirely
terrible assumption. [Though there is a similar Electronic Commerce Directive
in Europe and probably other similar laws in other jurisdictions]

As I understand it DMCA Safe Harbour is for sites where they transmit media
without interaction, users upload but the site is there to simply serve the
media. If the site were selling the media (direct financial benefit) or
offering a commercial license for it then Safe Harbour doesn't seem valid?
Applying a license would possibly be considered transformative? Similarly if
the site is selecting the images to meet their requirements - using a
[partially] manual method then it seems DMCA Safe Harbour wouldn't cover it.

Similarly IANAL.

\---

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)

------
gk1
A surprisingly good list. I expected the usual CC galleries on Flickr or
elsewhere, or Getty Images' new (and free) embedding option.

As mentioned by someone else, I don't get the "photos sent to you
weekly/monthly" sites. Why? I can't picture (har har) someone needing a photo
for some design, but thinking "Welp, nothing good on the web... I'll wait to
see what comes along next week." Unless it's just aimed at photography
enthusiasts who enjoy seeing beautiful photos, with no intent to use them for
something.

I'll also add that if you're looking to add photos to your content, consider
being different and using a funny cartoon drawing instead, like Jason Cohen,
42Floors, and others have been doing. Here's a stock cartoon site I created
just for that purpose:
[https://www.gagcartoons.com](https://www.gagcartoons.com)

~~~
ballpoint
Totally agree about the weekly emails. Unless I was using stock photography
all the time (in which case I'm less likely to need the free ones) this would
be no use. I was searching urgently for a good free stock photo a while ago
and these sites just made me screw my face up.

To make matters worse, there doesn't even appear to be any way to get the
back-catalogue of most of these sites. Death to Stock gives you a collection
of photos when you sign up, but it's just 10 sample images.

Very confusing.

~~~
munrocape
Probably the avenue for monetization would be access to the back catalogues.
Which in turn eliminates the free part of free stock photography.

While this may seem ludicrous (eliminating the appeal of your _free_ stock
photos over paid ones) this is common practice after a series of emails
looking to elaborate on this point with a few of the services.

~~~
ballpoint
The whole thing seems a bit flimsy to me though: (1) Don't provide free stock
photos at the time that people want them. (2) Later doe provide stock photos
at the time that people want them, but no longer for free. (3) Profit!

------
baby
The thing is, I don't want to receive stock photos daily/monthly. I want to be
able to search through stock photos to find RELEVANT ones to my needs. When I
need them.

I mostly use flickr and check creative commons and all the right radioboxes in
the search. But yeah most of the time they suck.

------
_august
Ha, I had just put up my launch page [0] yesterday using the blue mountain
image. It was kind of weird to see it on top.

This article seems directly copied from this medium post [1] I found a while
back, except for the addition of paid stock photo sites.

[0] [http://www.wanderdash.com/](http://www.wanderdash.com/) [1]
[https://medium.com/great-reading-for-startup-
founders/62ae4b...](https://medium.com/great-reading-for-startup-
founders/62ae4bcbe01b)

~~~
dang
Yes.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7615179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7615179)

------
moron4hire
I think the key thing is to not underestimate what you can use for imagery.
It's just not necessary to have people standing around a conference room table
with a Cisco phone in the middle that they're all leaning towards (except Carl
in the back, dammit Carl) when talking about business services.

From all of the things I've ever read or written, nobody cared what the
pictures were, unless the pictures were explicitly diagrams or illustrations.
Otherwise, it was almost white noise.

I say "almost" because, apparently, they still want for a picture, any
picture, in the slot. I don't get it, what is the point of having a picture if
the reader never shows a discernable reaction to the content of the picture.
But you need to have a picture there. It could be a picture of a pie. It could
be a picture of your city's skyline. It could even be a cat (actually, it
probably should be a cat, you will probably get more hits). But A) it needs to
be there, and B) it doesn't matter what it is.

For that reason, I have a strict "no purchase stock photography" rule. I have
in the past, and it just wasn't worth the money. I can throw together what I
need in so little time that it's not worth the money. And I'm not a graphic
designer, this is just how unimportant the content of the image is.

------
zosegal
A newly discovered favorite of mine is
[http://stocksy.com](http://stocksy.com) \- As far as I know it's invite only
and/or has a pretty strict approval process for photographers that want to
sell on their site. From what I've seen, the quality is often higher than your
typical iStock. It's probably a little more expensive than iStock, but nowhere
near the cost of Getty where you can spend several hundred to thousands of
dollars per photo. The biggest downsides I've noticed so far is that their
search/refinement filters are not the best, and they don't have the quantity
that other larger stock photo sites do.

Here's an example:

[http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/business/filetypes/ph...](http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/business/filetypes/photos,illustrations,video/source/basic#127b0cd9)

vs.

[http://www.stocksy.com/search?src=head&text=business](http://www.stocksy.com/search?src=head&text=business)

------
_pmf_
"Ethnic people around whiteboard, discussing important business things" \--
artist unknown

------
arb99
sxc.hu which recently changed to
[http://www.freeimages.com/](http://www.freeimages.com/) has a decentish
collection. been using it for years when quality isn't _too_ important.

but i tend to use photodune.com for anything a bit more serious, the images
vary from $1 to $5, and they have many to choose from. But if they don't have
anything good enough then its over to istockphoto.

of course there is also the getty embed thing they announced a while ago
([http://www.gettyimages.com/Creative/Frontdoor/embed](http://www.gettyimages.com/Creative/Frontdoor/embed))
which might be handy if you just want small blog content.

------
lubujackson
Alternatively, if you want to search for a more specific image, this is pretty
convenient: [http://nuggety.com/u/nuggety/top-image-search-
engines](http://nuggety.com/u/nuggety/top-image-search-engines)

------
bjelkeman-again
One of the things which we decided when started up was to not use any stock
photography. I think we have mostly managed. Instead we focused on taking a
lot of pictures. It feels to us, and we hear a lot from others, that it gives
a genuine voice to our comms work. Which is really important for us. The
photography is spread over a number of Flickr accounts, but we know where it
is.

My colleague Mark has a bunch of it:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/charmermrk/collections/7215760...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/charmermrk/collections/72157606663649266/)

------
aaron987
The photos from deathtothestockphoto look decent, but I see no central place
to search through them. You can only get them by email. Their Instagram feed
only has 46 photos. The rest of these look like the usual generic photos.

However, it is refreshing finally find some sites that actually offer free
photos. Most sites that pop up in a Google search have a few free ones, then
billions of affiliate links to Shutterstock. Nothing against Shutterstock, but
it does get frustrating to search for free images and constantly end up on a
page requesting payment.

------
klunger
Not free, but high quality and much cheaper than shutterstock etc:
[http://yaymicro.com/view.action](http://yaymicro.com/view.action)

~~~
geir
Thanks for recommending yaymicro. Glad you like it. I work for the company
behind yaymicro.com. They just launched a new subscription service.
Yayimages.com is "spotify for stock photos". The idea is that you can stream
unlimited images (the same 4 million+ images as yaymicro) for $10/mo. Just
wanted to share with you guys and hopefully get some HN feedback.

~~~
sleepyhead
"They" Are you working for Yaymicro or not?

~~~
geir
Yes, I am working for them part-time. Let me know what you think about the
service if you try it. Would love some feedback.

~~~
sleepyhead
Say hi to Oddbjørn :)

------
notdan
Not free, but I've found that [http://photodune.net](http://photodune.net) has
good stock photos that aren't too expensive ($1-$5 per image and usually the
$1 or $2 image is large enough for a website). They are much cheaper than
istockphoto, and they are priced in dollars, not credits, and they allow you
to buy a single photo without subscribing to a monthly plan, buying lots of
credits in bulk, etc.

------
Turing_Machine
Cool. Several were new to me. Here's another good one:
[http://www.morguefile.com/](http://www.morguefile.com/)

------
pcurl
Here is the original article that I assume this Medium post was based on.
Seeing as they essentially share the same title.
[http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-
suck/](http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-suck/)

------
uptown
Not free, but Dollar Photo Club (www.dollarphotoclub.com) seems to be one of
the more cost-effective offers I've come across in recent months. Certainly
cost-effective for anyone requiring a steady stream of stock photos for
blogging or some other purpose.

------
cmottau
I created [http://picmint.io](http://picmint.io) just as a place to keep
photos I have taken that may come in handy for projects and as a way to tinker
with IFTT. Free for anyone to use if you see something you like.

------
will_lam
I'm surprised 500px wasn't on this list.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
specifically [https://prime.500px.com](https://prime.500px.com)

------
spenuke
Anyone know of a clip-art (non-photo illustration) version of this list?

~~~
Turing_Machine
Try openclipart.org.

------
kunle
Placeit.net

------
RighteousFervor
This post has been getting a lot of mileage on both HN and layervault. Perhaps
disproportionately.

~~~
zaroth
I was surprised, when I finally clicked through after the link stayed on the
front page for several hours, to find what looked like a link sharing site.
Basically just an ad and nothing more? Why would people unvote an ad?

dang mentioned the voting ring detector recently, I wonder if there might be
some of that going on here?

------
pearjuice
Stock photos suck by definition. They give an unrealistic and overly
edited/positioned view of reality. If you are using stock photos, you are in
line with infomercials and false claims.

