4 Tips to Find Cheap Stock Photos Effectively

Are you looking for the right cheap stock photos for you project? Searching for the perfect image can be time-consuming, especially if you do not know how to use powerful search tools in a stock site. You need to know how to perform a proper image search to find stock images more quickly and easily. With thousands to millions of choices, how do you find the right images?

  • Use keyword search. When you search for flower, you will get thousands of images of flowers. It would take time to scour through them to find what you are looking for. You can narrow down your choices by using multiple keywords. Instead of just typing flower to the search bar, you can add what color you want. If you are looking for a specific red flow, you can type in the name of that flower and get a more focused result.
  • Be specific. What image are you looking for your project? Are you looking for a woman, child or elderly? Some stock sites allow you to narrow down your choices by filling the age and gender. The same applies with location. Typing the name of a city like New York will give you thousands of results. Try to be more specific like New York Time Square and you can cut down that number to a couple hundreds.
  • Use Advanced Search Options. Do not be intimated by the word advanced. You can use it to your advantage to find the cheap stock photo you need effectively. In the advanced search options, you can specify the orientation of the image you want as well as the number of people, angle, age, gender and others. Of course, the options depend with the stock photo site you are navigating. You can also opt to exclude terms in your search. For instance, “dogs not puppies” narrows your search results to dogs only.
  • Use Helpful Search Terms. To get the exact cheap stock photos you need, you can use these helpful search terms: 1) isolated to find images in a white background; 2) nobody to find empty office environments; 3) copy space for images with a place to add text; and many more. These useful terms will help you get the specific images you need to enhance your website.

Finding cheap stock photos from this blog effectively helps you save time and money. Depending on the stock photo agency you choose, you can cut down the time you spend finding the perfect image. Many stock sites are user-friendly. You can easily navigate through the website and understand how their search engine works. We hope these four tips will help you cut down on the time you a lot on searching for the right cheap stock images.

Stock Phostock-photo-diaryto Diary: How I Found the Best Cheap Stock Photos

Being a travel blogger, I am regularly in search of the best photos to complement my writing. While I can take my personal photos to make my blog more resounding, stock photos make them more alive and interesting. Who likes poor-quality photos taken by non-professional photographers, anyway? That’s why I always take the time to look for high-quality stock photos over the Internet.

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Starting Out

On my first blogs, I talked about the places I want to travel. Since I have not been to the places yet, I inserted beautiful photos from stock photo agencies. I started with one photo a blog. During this time, I find Fotolia suitable for my creative needs. With a Pay-As-You-Go promotion, I got marvelous photos for a very affordable price. If you are also starting out with your blog, visit Fotolia and get cheap but gorgeous pictures.

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Getting Better

One by one, I visited the places I mentioned in my blogs. In addition to my personal photos, I used cheap stock photos (from these sites) to authenticate my travels. However, the number of photos I needed also increased. A friend of mine was using Shutterstock, so I decided to try it as well. Although it costs higher than Fotolia, Shutterstock offers amazing royalty-free images. It also has a wider range of choices with its over 55 million images. To cope with the higher expense, I used Shutterstock coupon code.

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Now, I am using iStock for my blogs. What I like about iStock is that my credits never expire. I am currently subscribed to its most affordable plan and I am pleased. I get to choose from millions of royalty-free images, illustrations and even videos at a great price. Plus, I don’t have to worry about not being able to consume my credits as they are rolled over the next month. I also get to enjoy free photos, videos, illustrations and music clips per week.

Looking Ahead

I admit that I am not a good photographer. That’s why I am thankful for photo-editing applications. I am using Photoshop for all my personal photos so they don’t look too horrible when placed among cheap stock photos. After all, I intend to convince my readers that I’ve been to these places and all those photos were taken by me. When I heard that Adobe has launched its own stock photo site, I was excited as it is integrated with Adobe Photoshop. When my subscription ends, I will try Adobe Stock and I will tell you about my experience.

This is my stock photo diary. I’ve been jumping from one stock photo site to another, but all of them did not disappoint me. They all catered to my creative needs. Without all of them, my blog will not be as successful as it is today. I won’t be able to retain my visitors and turn them into avid readers. Without them, my blog will never be interesting.