Stop taking the pixels
Taking stock of the damage from free photography
In a world where standing out is more important than ever, I’ve recently found myself asking why some companies insist on only using free stock photography for their marketing, website and social. With websites like Pexels, Unsplash and Pixabay available at the click of a button, there’s a growing issue in the marketing industry with the use of free stock photography.
There’s definitely an appeal to free stock – it’s free after all, but what’s the real cost? Overuse, lack of attribution for photographers and quality all spring to mind.
The overarching issue with free stock is it’s often highly overused. Some images have become so commonplace that whenever I see them, my instinct is to instantly try to associate the photo with another brand that’s using it, diverting my attention away from the brand I’m meant to be focusing on. A real issue of brand mistaken identity.
Let’s take the image below. It’s a good photograph, nicely composed with good colour range.
Credit – Pietra Schwarzler
But a few quick google searches, and I ran into the image used on multiple websites and blog posts. In fact, I found three separate instances of this image on Medium alone. This just demonstrates how frequently used some of these images can be, and when you’re searching around a similar subject, you’re more than likely to run into the same image more than once.
It’s not just overuse that’s an issue. Lack of attribution is very common with free stock images, especially where brands take the image and tweak it. This might not seem like a big deal, but when it comes to a photographers career, recognition is vital to survival as the industry is so competitive. The problem here partially lies with the user, but also with the stock website.
Take Unsplash, for example. They have a Licensing page that outlines what you can and can’t do with the images you download, but attribution is only ‘appreciated’. Not only is this ambiguous, it’s simply unfair on the photographer as the majority of brands using their images won’t attribute the photo because they don’t have to, so the photographer goes unrecognised.
Quality is the final point I’d like to talk about. When it comes to striking, memorable photography, quality is key. It’s very rare to find a free stock photo that’s good quality. The majority are grainy or have cliché filters applied. When I branded Resolut, I spent countless hours trawling through paid stock sites trying to find the perfect image. The hero image below demonstrates the quality comparison between free and paid stock.
Credit – Harsch Shivam
Adobe Stock
The quality might not look too bad at smaller sizes, but when we zoom into 100%, you can see a grain to the image and a filter has been applied. Not only that, but the image size is dramatically smaller, making it less flexible for use across different media.
The filter may be less of an issue than the grainy quality, but it really depends on whether that filter style is carried across all of your brand's imagery or not. If it’s the latter, then your brand may be becoming disjointed and diluted.
I can’t stress enough the need to use paid, premium photography nowadays. If it comes down to cost, stock photography is more affordable than ever. Thanks to increased competition, stock sites like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock and iStock have become more affordable than ever before. A single standard quality image costs just £1.99 on Adobe Stock – a price worth paying for individuality in your brand. Here at Resolut, we encourage all of our clients to reap the benefits of paid stock rather than using free stock. It really is a no-brainer.
