Businesses or people looking to enhance marketing themselves or a specific message or product often turn to stock photography to fulfill their creative needs.
Why use stock photography?
Marketing professionals who decide to use stock photography for ad campaigns and fliers will save time and money. Nowadays, the stock photography industry is almost exclusively online and with the advent of the digital age, these websites have databases of millions of cheap images that are easy to find. And often, when you purchase a photo, you can download it to your computer instantly. We found this list of cheap stock photo agencies very useful on stockphotosecrets.com.
Most professional photographers loathe the idea of someone or some company circumventing the creative route in favor of using a stock photo. But the benefits of purchasing stock images are many. Most important, they are less expensive than hiring a photographer who will have to arrange, schedule and set up an assignment. Not only will the image be more costly, it will take a lot longer for the client to get his or her hands on the photo.
Used the correct way, the stock photo can be very effective in helping to promote a message or a product. And there are plenty of websites that offer cheap stock images options.
Where to find cheap stock images?
Some of the cheapest stock photo options can be found at websites such as Shutterstock (check out a this coupon code here), Depositphotos, Fotolia, iStock, Dreamstime and 123RF. These websites have literally millions upon millions of stock photos that are available. Many stock photos are free, but most do come at a price, which is normally significantly less than if you hire a professional photographer
I found this video explaining it in more detail:
There are three types of stock photography:
- Traditional or macro stock photography, which comes at a higher price and consists of exclusive stock photos.
- Mid stock photography, which is not as expensive as macro but more costly than micro stock photography.
- Microstock photography is at the low end of the price format. (check out the Wikipedia entry for more info)
Check Wikipedia if you want to know more about the different
The beauty of all the online companies that offer millions of cheap stock photos is that images can be purchased and delivered instantly.
The website with the lowest price stock photos is PhotoSpin, which has been selling stock images since 1999. Operated by designers and photographers, the cheapest stock photos could end up costing less than one cent per image. Signing up is easy and specials are available.
On the flipside of cheap stock photos, the lowest price for a stock image on Shutterstock will cost 28 cents. Clients can sign up for specials that include free photos and bonus offers. This website have a great top 7 list of the cheapest stock photo subscriptions as well.
Another website to purchase cheap images is Dreamstime, whose lowest price image costs 20 cents for one royalty-free image. Dreamstime boasts a flexible pricing system that regular users will be able to benefit from if they sign up.
Save money and time with affordable Images
Stock photography often is of better quality than images shot on assignment. Photographers are not under deadline pressure and have more time to manage a photo shoot. They can make sure the image is edited properly to suit a specific client. At the same time, clients have millions of searchable images, including international stock photos, to choose from that meet their specific needs. Users also can include stock images on more than one marketing campaign and can be used in conjunction with other designs, brochures or websites. Taking advantage of the millions of cheap stock photos many of these websites have to offer would be good business practice.
