Funny, doesn't that woman riffling through those dollar bills work for that other company? I am sure I have seen her on that other company's site. Oh wait, photos from stock collections, of course.

Is this not the most unimaginiative and lazy way to get images for your site? Is it not like using falsified or imaginary testimonials for your product. It's not like you hired someone to do a television commercial and show your product being used. Those people would actually come in contact with your product. The stock models are paid to look all happy for nothing in particular. In my opinion that is false advertising.

Web designers get all excited about their new digital cameras right? Why aren't they using them to take real pictures of real people using their sites or software or other products?

Gee.. maybe because most web designers are NOT photographers and don' t have the necessary equipment, or skills, to take professional-looking photos.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using stock photos and I surely wouldn't call it lazy or "falsified'. Only the big companies with the BIG budgets can afford the hefty prices for rights-managed stock photos.

That really depends. It isn't THAT difficult to take a half-decent photograph with any digital camera from the last 3-4 years, Photoshop it for 10-15 minutes, and put it on a site.

I tend to agree with webstreak on this. If you're going to use pictures, use ones that you took first, stock photos if you absolutely MUST do so after.

The other angle behind stock photos is that they quite often LOOK like stock photos. They often look somewhat disjointed and not suited to the page they're inserted into.

Having said all of that, I've personally used stock photos in the past and they've turned out quite well once I altered them. The key is that you do have to do some work on them so that most people won't recognize the original photograph.

Not only do they look like stock photos, but I as a webmistress would find it really embarrassing to see my same photo on someone else's site, regardless of whether I knew them. If I do look into stock photos, I never use them as they are. I always edit them to my own application and liking. I do the same with clipart, if I use it. Yes, I have used both, but never as is.

An interesting case I came across. Someone I knew was working on the e-mail support desk of a paid for action website. This particular website had a really simple graphic on its index page. The person I'm talking about got an email wondering if the webmaster of the paid for action site was going to sue this other webmaster for stealing the logo. To make a long story short, I have seen the same "logo" on at least two other sites since then!!

My point: With stock clipart and photos, you're going to end up somewhere along the line with a logo or identifying photograph that is NOT unique and probably isn't yours.

Case number two and point in itself: The cute little animated Campbell Soup Kids don't show up representing anyone else's products, do they? You recognize them in association with Campbell soup?

What would you rather have: A picture or logo that makes people say...I saw that on so and so.... Or one that jumps up and shouts the name of your very own company or product?

Depends, webstreak. If you do it right, then most people can never tell.

A demonstration:

http://www.hibiscusflorals.com
http://www.greenbuildingfest.com
http://www.sbcanada.org
http://www.onestep.on.ca/opportunities/
http://www.lightenupontario.ca/

As you can see, there are a series of photographs on the opening pages of each of these sites (both in Flash and otherwise). One of these photographs, and only one, is a photograph from a stock photo site.

The question I have is: which one do you think it is? To be fair, don't look at any stock photo sites.

Hint: on the second-to-last site, it's none of the photographs on the left part of the Flash. Those rotate in and out at random, and it would be unfair for me to use one of those as the stock photograph since it won't show up all of the time. So it's not one of those three photographs.

Take a guess, and I'll reveal the answer after.

If anyone else wants to play too, feel free. I'll answer the question tomorrow if others start guessing within the next couple of hours.

If you want to shoot your own photos for a website it could cost several hunder, if not thousands of dollars. Forget your 4MP pocket camera, unless you're shooting for ebay.

You need proper equipment (several thousand $), you need the model(s) or props, you need the studio or at least some decent setup. Also you need skills. After you shoot the subject, it takes time to "process it" and have it ready for web usage. Also, what do you do if you need a picture of a shark close-up? You're gonna go and shoot it? How about showing a culturally diverse shot of people? You gonna invite everyone you know and have them stand in your front yard?


I rather pay $1 per image from istockphoto then go through all that trouble I rarely find similar images on different websites, and I've been using stock photos for a while. It is even less likely that the Avarage Joe will ever notice it. But stock logos are a no-no.

I use stock photos a lot. I don't have the time nor the resources to take hundreds of photos of different people, places or things. I use a lot of people photos, mixed ethnicities and age groups.

I have only run across a 'same photo' on a couple of occasions and it didn't bother me, or my clients (employed physicians) one iota. Our physicians usually don't have the budgets for rights-managed or exclusive images. I use the micro stock sites like iStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc. If I want landscapes or non-people photos, I'll dig thru Stock Xchange first (free !) and modify where needed. I often need a photo of a specific area - Dallas, Kansas City, Salt Lake, etc. I can't fly out there and take photos and the usual folks with their little pocket digitals can't take decent photos of any quality or composition !

Using stock LOGOS is another matter entirely. When it comes to a company identity system, you do need to fork over the money for a unique and copyrighted logo.

Stock photos is the most cost effective way to get high quality images at reasonable prices.

I'm a webmaster and photographer as well, and sometimes I have to use stock imagery too. It's a matter of saving time and money.

And hey, photographer need to make a living too! :-)

Meh. No one played my guessing game. :P

Sorry for bumping an old tread; I saw another one that mentioned photography and stock, followed some links, and wound up here.

Originally Posted by webstreak

Is this not the most unimaginiative and lazy way to get images for your site? Is it not like using falsified or imaginary testimonials for your product. It's not like you hired someone to do a television commercial and show your product being used. Those people would actually come in contact with your product.

But you're paying those people to be in contact with your product, not to tell the truth about it. Either way, it's scripted.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

That really depends. It isn't THAT difficult to take a half-decent photograph with any digital camera from the last 3-4 years, Photoshop it for 10-15 minutes, and put it on a site.

On the other hand, it's not that hard to build an attractive web template, and I just can't seem to do that... Personally I don't think photography is nearly as hard, but then my interests are pretty tailored to, well, things I find interesting.

Originally Posted by webstreak

Not only do they look like stock photos, but I as a webmistress would find it really embarrassing to see my same photo on someone else's site, regardless of whether I knew them.

It costs more, but you can buy or lease exclusive rights to an image. Or, to play devil's advocate, I can't count how many pictures I've seen where someone figures out where Ansel Adams stood, and takes a very similar photo from the same spot. It takes more than a camera to be original ... and that holds true in situations where cameras aren't involved.

Originally Posted by webdesigner555

If you want to shoot your own photos for a website it could cost several hunder, if not thousands of dollars. Forget your 4MP pocket camera, unless you're shooting for ebay.

That's a popular misconception. If you're showing photos on the web at 600x400 pixels, that's 0.24 m in all, so it really doesn't matter how many million are available to start with, before you shrink the photo down on the computer. I paid thousands for a 13 megapixel digital back, but not because I was hoping my web sized photos would start looking better. If there's any gear that matters, it's lighting, and then optics.

Originally Posted by webdesigner555

You need proper equipment (several thousand $), you need the model(s) or props, you need the studio or at least some decent setup. Also you need skills.

I agree about needing some amount of skill, but the sun with a bit of cloud cover beats studio setups any day.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

I use the micro stock sites like iStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc.

Did you know Getty bought iStock?

We have used stock photos in the past. I have nothing against them. As people have already pointed out web designers don't tend to have the skills or equipment to do this. The quality they offer too is of a very high standard which I couldn't match personally.

I use Wikipedia.

We work on websites each day from clients all over the world. If the client was local and they wanted to pay us to go and take images then yes I always prefer to work with our own photos.

Most of the time they do not want to pay for this service or they have taken the photos themselves.

We also have many clients that have said that they want a website but are at the other end of the country and they do not have a digital camera. What are we meant to do now? The only thing that we can do is use and change stock photos to make them more exciting. We can not go to Google and steal other peoples copyrighted images.

I do agree that it is always better to use original photos wherever possible but sometimes there is just no other option.

I think it depends on the stock photos. If they're very good and photos that can't be replaced (like event photos) then heck, I'd use em. If there's something I want for the site that hasn't been taken yet, then I'd go out and have a field day taking photos.

Here's a place you can get extremely high quality - and free - stock photos:

http://www.zemostock.com/blog/2007/0...e-photography/

The link goes to a sort of "about us" page, or really where the guy describes his philosophy of why he provides free stock.