The 5 best stock image websites

Where is the best place to source stock images? This is a question we get asked all the time by our customers who want to use them within their graphics, but are often unsure where they need to look to find the right ones.

So to help, we have compiled a list of the 5 best stock image websites according to us, Vinyl Impression. We have listed our favourites in reverse order and have scored them out of 5 for price, image quality, choice and easy of use to give a helpful comparison.

5. 123RF

123RF have been around for a long time and have a range of photographic imagery as well as vector illustrations. As this company is well established it is often a very popular first point of call for many customer.  However, we personally find that their images are are relatively samey and contain very fake looking overlaid composite images.

As a result we gave them the following scores:

Price - 3
Image quality - 2
Choice - 3
Ease of use - 4
Overall Rating - 3

4. Istock

Istock also have a large range with many images unique and stunning images. Unfortunately, Istock is very expensive to use for large format printing purposes and often becomes a no go area for many customers. In addition some of the images they supply have been pre-edited and stylised which can make them hard to include in an office branding package.

As a result we gave them the following scores:

Price - 2
Image quality - 4
Choice - 4
Ease of use - 3
Overall Rating - 3

3. Adobe stock

Adobe Stock is the new kid on the block, but already has 45 million images to choose from. Adobe have also integrated this service into their creative cloud package, which can be directly accessed from programmes like Photoshop or Illustrator that pulls images straight onto your artboard, speeding up workflows incredibly.

However, like Shutterstock there are a vast amount of images to sift through before you find the one you are after.

As a result we gave them the following scores:

Price – 4
Image quality - 4
Choice - 4
Ease of use - 5
Overall Rating - 4

2. 500px

500px is our personal favourite as the images are submitted by some of the world’s best photographers and they are amazing. The lighting often captured in their imagery makes for a fantastic eye catching interior design feature when large format printed into wall murals for your space.

However, the choice available is rather limited but I am yet to decide if this is a good or bad thing. In addition the images are also significantly more expensive than compare to Shutterstock, which is could be a concern if you do not have the budget.  

As a result we gave them the following scores:

Price – 4
Image quality – 5
Choice – 3
Ease of use – 5
Overall Rating - 4

1. Shutterstock

Shutterstock has a huge bank of images, illustrations, templates and videos and is renowned for the range of its library. However, with the vast amount of choice comes an overwhelming challenge to pick an image, which at times can become paralysing.

We feel that Shutterstock are the leaders in stock imagery especially as they have added cool features that allow you to edit the images on the site before you download them, which is really helpful!

As a result we gave them the following scores:

Price – 5

Image quality – 4

Choice – 5

Ease of use – 5

Overall Rating 4.7