When starting a creative project, whether it’s a website, poster or social media post, of course it’s best to use original photos or illustrations. However, this is not always feasible.

When to use stock photos

Whether it is due to remote location or lack of time or money, it is inevitable to use ” stock “. Stock can be photos, videos, graphics or illustrations and in this text we will explain when and how to use them.

We should start from the fact that almost every image on the Internet, and especially on the pages intended for download stock material, have licenses, i.e. copyrights, which determine under what conditions it is possible to use some material.

So the time when you can safely “download” images from the Internet and use them has long passed, unless you use them for private purposes.

The most popular stock sites

When it comes to images used for promotion, according to research, it is still the most popular to download from free stock sites, such as Pexels or Unsplash . The problem with these photos is that they are frequently used, so it is easy to recognize that they have already been used for some of the other brands.

That’s why brands usually opt for images that are specially photographed or designed ” in-house “. Amateur photos taken with a mobile phone are also often used.

Only at the end are brands ready to pay for stock photos from sites like Shutterstock , iStock or Gettyimages .

Advantages and disadvantages of using stock photos

The benefits of using stock photos are a large selection of high-quality photos from different authors, saving time and money, as well as the availability of photos of specific locations or industries. In particular, it should be noted that such photos or vectors are easily adapted to any brand, especially when it comes to mockups .

However, the choice of stock material has its drawbacks.

The biggest disadvantage is certainly unoriginality, what would be said in the marketing world, your brand will lack personality . You are much more likely to fit in, rather than stand out from the competition, which is the primary goal. This is exactly why you should avoid using stock vectors for logo design, for example.

On the other hand, one of the big disadvantages of stock images is that they do not convey the message to the users completely. This is especially true for industries that do not have a large selection of adequate images.

Users simply react less to stock than to original photos. Such an effect stems from the fact that photos often look monotonous, especially if they are from free stock sites.

Choose your photos carefully

However, all these disadvantages can be avoided by using stock photos only as a basic resource that you will improve by designing or combining more than one image.

It is also important to choose images so that they instill confidence in the user, i.e. leave the impression that you personally experienced and photographed it. Try to use photos that don’t look too stocky .

Finally, one of the main advantages of using stock material is that you are not limited by the number of images and the databases on professional websites are continuously replenished, so it is possible to create stocks that you will use as reference marketing material.

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