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I'm about to go on a search for a dozen or so stock photos representing our target audience and user-base (for a high-tech, B2B SaaS product). these will be used in marketing collateral as well as emails/landing-pages and other web pages. Our brand has not historically used a lot of photography so the few times we've need photos, we've gone to ShutterStock. I started my search there and while they have a vast selection and they are fairly inexpensive, a lot of their images are a bit too generic for our tastes... after not too long they start looking like the horrible, happy-techy-people-working-in-offices that were so horribly, horribly overused (imo) back in the late 90s/early 2000s. I'd like to step the quality up a little bit... find something a decent set resembling more of a "portrait" (with evocative qualities) than a cheap stock photo (even that's what it is).

Looking quickly, both Adobe Stock and iStock seem like they're closer to the quality I'm in search of. For purposes of uniqueness and again, that evocative quality, does anyone recommend 1 over the other... or perhaps have another in their price range to suggest?

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    Does this answer your question? Where are some good places to find royalty free stock images? Almost all royalty free stock sites offer the same overall quality of images. Considering only the images there's no hard and fast reason to choose one vendor over another. Only you can determine appropriate pricing and licenses as they relate to individual vendors.
    – Scott
    Jun 19, 2020 at 17:04
  • @Scott - most of the sites in that question seem to be focused on Creative Commons licenses, which is not what we need. Both Adobe and iStock fit our needs price and license-wise. I've found the royalty-free images on GettyImages to be of quite a bit higher quality than most (and it's reflected in the price). I'm trying to get an idea of whether or not Adobe or iStock might be somewhere between Shutterstock and GettyImages... if not, I might as well go with the cheapest option, Shutterstock.
    – Daveh0
    Jun 19, 2020 at 17:29
  • iStock is Getty. iStock was purchased by Getty some years ago. There's also Dreamstime.com... and a bunch of others. Everything listed in that duplicate link isn't about CC licensing.
    – Scott
    Jun 19, 2020 at 17:36
  • I understand that iStock is owned by Getty. The prices for images on the 2 sites are quite different, implying that iStock is of lower quality. I'm hoping to find that while not as high quality as GettyImages, iStock is a step up from Shutterstock, as it is priced higher. If you-get-what-you-pay-for is in effect t here, than it would make sense that this is the case.
    – Daveh0
    Jun 19, 2020 at 18:06
  • In technical respects.. there really isn't much difference. A 1200x1200 300PPI image is just that regardless of vendor. As far as aesthetics... there may be some, but MANY photographers/artists submitting to one site.. submit the same thing to other sites. Basing things on price, for me, is a poor determining factor. I'd merely find the images I WANT, then consider pricing. One can OFTEN find the same image on 3 or 4 different sites, all with different "credit" structures and pricing.
    – Scott
    Jun 19, 2020 at 18:17

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