Over the past few years Setup has collected and reviewed marketing tools in a number of categories. From tools that help benefit social media efforts to tools that increase productivity, Setup is on the case to help improve your life as a marketer!

The chances a company can afford to hire a professional photographer every time a visual is needed for a graphic or ad design are slim. To counteract this, companies buy photo subscriptions for up to $500 for professional photos - something that may not be possible for some marketers’ budgets.

Fortunately, there are several tools for the social media managers, content creators, bloggers, graphic designers, and ad creators who need to design at a rapid pace but may lack a hefty marketing budget or photography experience.

Setup selected a few royalty free photography websites that help keep content fresh, professional, and exciting.

Pexels

Pexels is an easy-to-use image platform that collects free stock photos from around the world. Providing a plethora of quality and professional images that can be uploaded by anyone and are curated by Pexels’ staff, Pexels offers a unique set of natural photos great for commercial use. Each photo is tagged so that they are easily searched in the discover bar. The photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license and, once clicked, provide a link to the original source, photo information (image size, date, camera type), and photographer. Though most photos are free, some exclusive photos require payment.

Unsplash

Unsplash is one of the most well-known royalty free stock image resources for web, content, and graphic designers. Photos on Unsplash are uploaded by professional photographers and deliberately curated by the Unsplash staff to showcase the high quality. Though there are fewer photos to download from this site than other stock image sites, the high quality and high resolution from the stock images make work look more professional and beautiful.

Photos are licensed for free under the Unsplash license and are easily searched by theme, word, or idea. Unsplash also offers users the ability to create groups of photos based on themes/ideas/colors to collect resources for future projects or invoke inspiration under “Collections.” Furthermore, Unsplash is Apple friendly and offers an app for creating/designing on mobile or touchpad products.

Pixel Mob

Instead of pulling up several stock image accounts, Pixel Mob aggregates photos from all the royalty free stock image sites. Pixel Mob strives to provide variety all the while ensuring users get the best quality images. Images are easily searchable and the site even gives users tips on how to bring a company’s story to life using images. Pixel Mob is currently in the works of offering filtering by image size as well.

StockSnap.io

StockSnap.io collects high quality photos that are licensed under CC0 and are at no cost to the user. The site offers thousands of images (updating them daily) that are easily searched and provides viewers with the most popular images (so that they can avoid using the same images as everyone else). If a user creates an account, they can download and favorite photos.

Reshot

Reshot, like the previously mentioned stock photo tools, creates a library of free quality images for personal, editorial, and commercial use. There are a variety of images that Reshot offers that are praised for their uniqueness and “natural” appeal. Startups, freelancers, and content creators would greatly benefit from using Reshot as a resource.

It is important when using any of the royalty free photo sites that users keep track of the licensing information from the original photographer. This is a safe tactic in case licensing rules change and proof is needed. Here is more information on tracking photo licenses.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, use these resources to help tell your brand’s story. Want more resources? Check out this longer list!