I’m somewhat enamored with stock photography.
I’m not much of a photographer myself although I greatly admire people who are. (My little sister is an amazing amateur photographer, and I’m a teensy bit jealous.)
But alas, I don’t have the time or inclination to really delve into the whole DSLR world. Plus there’s the added irritation of having to haul that gigantic thing around with you all the time hoping to catch the perfect lighting and carefree situation. Not for me, thank you.
Along with being not much of a photographer, I’m also a naturally frugal person.
(You would think would compel me to do my own photography but that one just didn’t work out that way). Regardless, I only spend money when I absolutely have to, and I’m always conscious about how I’m spending it.
So lately, I’ve had one really fun, really big web design project underway that requires the use of quite a lot of photos, and thus I have spent a good bit of time pouring through stock photo sites searching for those perfect images that fit a particular mood and convey just the right message.
It’s not easy, but it is really fun hunting for something unique but not cheesy. (Definitely beware the cheese factor if you go this route.)
As I’ve been working through this big design project, I’ve been trying out a ton of different photos in the design to make sure I’ve got the right ones and that they work well together.
This may sound like an easy feat, but I assure you it’s not. Finding bunches of photos with lots of different subjects and disparate photographers, lighting, settings, etc. that gel into a cohesive design story is more than a little tricky.
And since many of these photos are from premium sites and actually cost money, even if it’s only a dollar or two, I don’t want to willy-nilly be buying them until I know for sure I’m going to use them.
So I’ve been using what are called ‘comps’ of the photos I want to try out. These are basically decent sized versions of the photos that have watermarks all over them.
You definitely wouldn’t want to use them in a final design, but they work well enough for me and my client to determine if they’re the right fit for where we’re wanting to use them before we actually purchase them.
And they’re free.
Now you may not be a website designer, so you’re probably thinking, “Why on earth do I need to know this?!”
While you might not be into creating mockups or prototypes of your whole website, I bet you do create blog posts and want to use images there. Or you have a LinkedIn profile (with its new wonky, weird layout for the banner image) and you’re trying to find something that works well when it shows as a long, horizontal sliver of the image as well as when it shows a big chunk of the middle section. Or you need a group of images that all work together for a PDF you’re creating.
Here’s how it works:
- When you’re perusing a stock photo site and land on one you like, click on it to open it in its own page.
- Usually if you hover over the image there will be a big arrow or magnifying glass or something that will let you bring up a bigger version of the image.
- Once you enlarge the image, you can typically right click on it and choose SAVE IMAGE AS… (or similar wording depending on the browser you’re using).
- Then save it to your computer like you would any other image, and you can test it out in any of the places you’d like to use it.
- One of the nice things about this is that when you download the image, very often, the image name includes the name of the stock photos site you’re on as well as a unique image number, so you can easily search for and find the image again when you’re ready to actually buy it.
- Then, go to town and try it out where you’re wanting to use it. Once you know you’ve got the right image(s), you can feel good about making that purchase.
So there you have it – an easy, free way to try on lots of images to see which one fits before you buy. Like the pros!
