Struggling to find the perfect image for your presentation? Here’s our list of the top free and paid presentation image resources to help you find the right one.
We’ve all been there – hunting for a contextually-relevant image to help bring our words to life and pulling our hair out because the ones we’ve found are either:
- Too low-res
- Costs a million dollars, or
- Just not quite right (all I want is an image of a man on a unicorn wearing a tutu and smoking a cigar – is that too much to ask?!)
The right image can raise your mediocre presentation to great heights and land your point with a bang (take a look at our work for some examples). But how do you find them? Here’s our top list of our favourite go-to presentation image resources.
Free images.
Over the past few years, there has been a growing number of websites that provide free stock imagery. These sites offer pictures that are free from copyright restrictions or licenses under the Creative Commons public domain. This means that you can copy, modify and distribute – all without asking permission.
Below are our top 4 free image sites:
Unsplash is fantastic for free, beautiful high-resolution photos and has become one of the best sources for stock images. Even better, it’s full of images you won’t have already seen in the 20 other presentations you sat through last week. Drop the generic stock images and try out something fresh.
StockSnap.io has a handy search feature making it easy to browse through the thousands of gorgeous images available – with hundreds of new ones added weekly. Similar to Unsplash, it’s got imagery that you won’t have already seen. In addition, the site tracks views and downloads so you can easily see the most popular photos available.
Burst is a resource from Shopify that provides original free stock photos themed around business and industry categories. It’s a great resource when you are after something really specific like “Food Flatlays” or “Make-up Palettes”. It’s even got free Cinemagraphs (moving pictures) to really help bring your presentations to life.
Kaboompics is one of the most popular sources of high-quality, free images for lifestyle, interior design and niche creative industries like architecture, fashion, food, landscapes, etc. The site offers a great search feature where you can explore images by colour or orientation (portrait or landscape) which is quite unique – very helpful for building presentations to a certain style or aesthetic.
Paid images.
Sometimes you will require a very specific image, which you won’t be able to find for free. That’s when you’ll need to look at handing over some cash. The good news is that since the growth of free high-quality stock image sites, most paid sites now offer high-quality imagery at reasonable prices. Also, there is a variety of paid stock images that are crowdsourced, connecting you with a community of photographers just in case you want to commission your very own photo shoot down the track.
Below are our top 5 free paid sites:
We have lumped these two sites together as they are the two better-established stock image sites. Both offer millions of affordable, unique, royalty-free images and stock photos – many of which will match your search criteria perfectly. You can download a certain number of images for a set amount (credits) or via a monthly price plan.
Twenty20 is the world’s largest online photography marketplace, giving you access to imagery from a community of photographers. If you’re a budding photographer, you can start selling your best shots on there too. Twenty20 offer curated collections, organised into handy, simple-language categories like “Using Phone and Mobile Devices” or “Real Women”. There’s even the option of submitting your own briefs for custom photo shoots. Very cool.
Stocksy is home to a highly-curated collection of stunning, royalty-free stock photography and video footage. They have very high curatorial standards, which means you won’t have to search through endless pages to find that perfect photo – woot! They are also a cooperative, ensuring that members not only get paid fairly but receive a share of the company. Pricing is per image.
Another community-based service, 500PX offers millions of images from photographers around the world. They pride themselves on being a place for budding photographers to grow, offering workshops and classes on improving photography skills. That means they have a high benchmark for what they feature, meaning that each photo you see looks like it could belong in the Nat Geo hall of fame. As categories are a little generic, you might need a bit more patience for this site when searching for the perfect image.
May the force be with you on your quest of finding that perfect image that summarises exactly what you want to say in one beautiful shot. As more and more presentation image resources come along, our selection pool of free or cheap images will only get better. But if you don’t have the time or patience to find the right images yourself, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
