Hey y’all! I have received some DMs about where to find stock images for photoshop, reference images, and design over time; I’ve worked professionally in tech and media as a creative (in writing, journalism, and advertising) for about ten years, so I thought I’d do a little writeup about how to safely use stock images in case anyone else was wondering!

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: These are guidelines for personal use things like adoptables, avatars, banners, etc that you're selling for in-game money. If you are planning to sell something for real money or print it out to sell that print for real money, that is a whole different ball game.

 

First, it’s important to understand how reputable stock image repositories work so you can spot the less-than-reputable ones. Reputable stock sites:

• Contract photographers to take photos for them, either directly or by having a moderated portfolio submission process
  
  
• Give a cut of licensing fees to said photographers
  
  
• Have a moderated direct-from-artist model (deviantArt, for instance, has unmoderated uploads, so someone could easily yoink an entire set of stock from someone else and reupload it; for some resources dA is incredible, but for others, use your best judgment).

 

There are also royalty-free image options and images in the public domain. 

• Royalty-free images are, literally, free from royalties; they’re free to use, usually for personal use only. If you’re getting an image from a place like Shutterstock, Unsplash, or deviantArt, there will be details about what the image can be legally used in. These are called use clauses. Unless you’re selling banners or art from a reference for real money, you’re probably safe, but be smart and check the use clauses!
  
  
• Images in the public domain are images that are so old they no longer have rights attached to them. Lots of paintings and old photographs fall under this category. Literally, the public owns these images! It’s like a not-scammy NFT. 

 

What are some good stock websites?

• The websites used universally by professional media and tech are Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, and Getty Images. All three of these require monthly memberships and have different plans depending on your needs. Shutterstock has royalty-free options. These options are moderated, i.e. an actual human checks them to make sure they’re original work before they’re made available.
  
  
  • Sometimes you may see the same stock images on multiple websites. That's okay! Photographers will often sell their images to multiple libraries in order to maximize their own profit. Stock sites will buy images their competitors have to keep their libraries, well, competitive.
    
    
• Pexels, Unsplash, and Behance are great free stock resources. Unsplash was recently bought by iStock. Behance is owned by Adobe and essentially is a community portfolio for artists and designers. They also have free fonts, textures, and vectors!
  
  
• https://publicdomainreview.org/ is my favorite public domain site. They collect all kinds of stuff that’s in the public domain, and it’s an easy site to just like, looooose time in looking at Old Things.
  
  
• deviantArt, as I said before, is risky for stock images. It is not appropriate to use professionally, but for things like banners, avatars, etc it can be a great resource. Do your due diligence to make sure the profile of the artist you’re downloading from is legit — it’s active, the work is consistent in quality (not necessarily style; many accomplished photographers and artists are able to create in many different styles), and they generally seem like a real person making real things.

 

What about crediting? This is *legally* speaking. If you're feeling nice, credit every dang person.

• You do not need to credit work in the public domain. 
  
  
• If you are using images from one stock resource, such as Adobe Stock, you only need to credit that resource. You do not need to credit individual photographers (unless you want to).
  
  
• If you are using images from multiple stock resources, credit each of them.
  
  
• If you are using resources from a direct-from-artist model like Pexels, Unsplash, or deviantArt, credit each individual artist.
  
• HOWEVER! Some websites have individual crediting requirements. Be sure to check those and adhere to them!

 

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to comment with any questions <3