What do you think about stock photography?

[mikeWagner098]

Hey everyone,

I want to know what you think about the use of stock photography.

Are the time, effort and savings worth the fact that the picture on your site can very easily have the same people (or even be the same picture) as what is used on another person's website?

Does it bother you?

 

[orangecopper]

stock photography is recomended when you have heavy graphic or image usage and u do many websites to be on the safe side not to use others images, images are nt that commonly used cos majorly people flick images from google images..

so stock is safe as per me when you are doing a branded website.
you get to buy CDs of stock images based on themeslike people, graphics, icons etc.

cheers
Josh

 

[zach]

It does hurt your case to have the exact or similar images as another site that a possible client has visited in the past; it gives off the appearance that the image is in fact stock photography which makes people begin to question the company and/or product involved.

Nevertheless, according to case studies users connect faster and easier with images than with text based information/adverisements. Just ensure that the images you choose doesn't look like a generic stock image as well as have it really connect with the product or service you provide.

 

[jonweb2009]

Stock photos are great,

you immediately get what you want, excellent and professional quality and royalty free pictures.

i use them in all my projects. saves time than building something from scratch... starting from $1

 

[PixelPusher]

Stock photography resources (websites) are very helpful and provide quick solution to suit your graphic/web design needs. I use istock and getty quite often and the price is decent.
In regards, to someone else having the same image as you, well the potential is always there but keep in mind there is an astronomical amount of websites on the web today so the likelyhood of running into someone with the same image on their site is slim. One thing to consider if this bothers you, is the amount of times the image has been downloaded. These totals are usually provided before you choose to download an image (istock does this).

 

[zartwork]

Stock photos have become a standard practice at this point, many major retailers and other companies use stock photos. Using stock photo is a good practice for most applications.

 

[bluecollar01]

stock photos are great for companies with smaller budgets. rights-managed photos are expensive and can still be purchased by other companies. having a photographer do a custom shoot can be cumbersome - the cost of photographer, cost of talent, cost of location, etc. additionally, if your trying to do a a custom shoot on the cheap - it usually looks that way. for best overall value stock is king.

besides if you want the photo to be unique to your company - do some editing in photoshop. whether its using a filter, making a composite or something as simple as going greyscale you can alter the picture to be more unique.

 

[TexDesignStudio]

I'm not very concerned with it. Its really all about convenience. do you want it quick and ready or do you want to spend the time. images are mainly to help emphasize a point. if a stock photo can do so, then it does the job, so go with it.

 

[Jimb0]

You can use stock photography and still make an original looking site, in my opinion. Most designers don't have the time or budget to get custom photos taken for each and every project (well I don't know many, anyway!!)

I mean you don't have to just take the photo the way it is, there are many ways you can alter or treat a photo or even composite several stock shots together to make something new which wouldn't immediately look like stock. You can erode photos, cut them out, reverse them, make them black and white or sepai, if you use them as elements in your design rather than designing from the images it helps. Also you can mix photography and illustration, hand drawn elements can really make a website stand out especially if it's aimed at the younger market.

Without stock imagery there wouldn't be a design industry, in my opinion as most SME clients would not be able to afford the additional costs of image origination on top of web design and development costs.