A good image is worth a thousand words, we all know. That is why stock graphics and images is a lucrative business. In the last 8 years I have focussed on purely the engineering aspect of things allowing me avoid the need to worry about stock images. But not things are changing and I have been curious about the best approach to acquire stock images. My first stop was ThemeForrest sibling Envato Elements.

Price

Envato Elements is a good service. An individual account will offset me $16.50/month. It said it had 50 million photos to choose from. When it comes to vector images there are like 50k. That is not all they have stock video (openers, titles and alot).

That is really not bad price for such a gallery.

Availability

This is not an extensive analysis. I'd been interested in 2 categories in particular. In one hand I am building a website for a laundry business. In the other hand I am building a website for a Buddhist temple. So m searches were limited to these domains.

The laundry related searches gave decent results. But I noticed it lacked variety to choose from. For example the subject was the same and in different poses / scenarios. Its some thing I can work with. But If I am going to make many laundry websites, the lack of diversity will be an issue.

The next search was related to "Buddha" "Vesak" etc in both the Photos section and the Graphics section. Most key words gave little to none and most of the case were of no use to me. This is actually an opportunity for some one to look in to.

Alternatives

While I hate Adobe for their shift to subscription model, I knew they had one of the best if not the best stock collection accessible in the internet. I went over to their site and search. There were hundreds of pages of usable assets with good diversity.

How ever when I looked in to the plans I was rather disappointed. I'd assume my work will need a good 100+ assets a month and to be safe the 350 assets/month plan seemed to be good but it starts at $169.99/mo.

But depending on who you are Adobe Stock or some thing similar might be a better choice.