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Stock photos — yes or no?
What do you think about them? Do you use them in your content?
We at Icons8, love stock images — photos, illustrations, and icons. But we make them unique, and lively, so they don’t look like typical "stock" content.
Check it out on November 9th when we release Threedio, a library of ready-to-use 3D models.
🔔Don’t miss: https://www.producthunt.com/prod...
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I don't like when brands take stock photos from the 1st result page of the stock images sites. It's good to try to find some unique photos, give it some time.
Well, I don't think that it should be so black or white, there are cases where stock photos can be more appropriate or less so.
For example, you can deliberately use even first page stock photos with irony : )
Pros of Stock photos:
- Saves time from having to take a photo/create the image yourself
- Many look professional and are in high definition
- Available in various formats
- Can be easier to load in, reducing page load speed (depending on where you get the stock photos from)
Cons of Stock photos:
- If it's popularly used, your brand can have the opposite result of looking unprofessional or "just like the others"
- Stock images may not fully represent your brand as they were made for general use
- Most high definition versions of stock photos need to be paid for
Tips:
- Use stock images but also edit on top of it by adding brand graphics, adjusting the colors if possible, etc.
- Invest in an in-house graphic designer or learn the skills to create images/take photos.
Just as you mentioned, stock photos are perfectly fine as long as these are not the pics from the very first page.
Stock images are great! Of course as now AI image generators are on the rise, stock photos may become absolete, but I think it's not likely.
Editing them to be relevant to your brand/the story of your content piece is key.
Just randomly throwing in a free pixabay or pexels image to fill up space feels like something from the past lol.
In the era of Image Generation, I believe stock images should evolve to resemble something like the MidJourney hub, where community-contributed images cater to a wide range of needs. The ability to quickly generate specific images when you can't find exactly what you're looking for would be a game-changer in the stock photo industry.
Subscribed to your project, sounds very interesting!
If possible, I would use your own photos. Something with your logo in it, so you know it’s authentic. It’s not always easy, but it’s a way to cut through the clutter and show the “real” company behind the value proposition.
Sounds interesting! I never use stock photo in my content. Because it is not unique, if your product can make it I will absolutely try it!
Definitely yes. But it's best to avoid using the ones that appear first on stock photo websites. Delving deeper can help you find unique images that aren't overused.
ThinkDiffusion