If you’re serious about web design and graphic design, you know the benefits of photos and illustrations. Using bold, beautiful images sends a signal to visitors that your site is high quality and authoritative—and deserves to be shared.

However, if you’ve only spent time on free stock image sites, you might think stock imagery means cheesy clip art and photos of awkward models. In fact, there are better places to get stock photos. Shutterstock offers millions of high-quality stock photos, plus time-saving graphics like icons, borders and background textures.

A site like Shutterstock is your best option for downloading images legally and fairly. You could look for photos on Flickr or Google Images, but you face some time-consuming work. You’d have to make sure you have permission to republish the pictures in a commercial context. Usually this means contacting every photographer or their agents individually. Some photographers will be delighted that you’re sharing their work, but others will not, and you could be setting yourself up for a difficult negotiation. With rare exceptions (such as NASA images and very old photos), every photograph is copyrighted unless the rights
holder says otherwise. You’ve probably read stories about web sites that have had to pull content offline after complaints or legal action. You don’t want to be in that position.

Every Shutterstock image license comes with a legal guarantee backed by a major global e-commerce company. You’ll find the images you need and won’t have to worry about legal problems when you use Shutterstock to download stock photos and illustrations.

This article was provided by Shutterstock, a leading provider of stock photos, illustrations and footage.