There's no longer any need to pay large amounts for stock photographs.
All of the links on the right point to microstock agencies that will sell you royalty free photo's and illustrations for under $10. In fact for web sized images you need generally pay no more than a dollar to get what you need.
Microstock Buyers Guide
Don't pay big money for stock photo's! Below is a list of links to the biggest and best microstock agencies, all of whom will sell you royalty free images for under 10 dollars, and if it's a website sized photo you're looking for, then a single dollar is all you'll need.
iStockPhoto
Owned by Getty Images, iStock is the undisputed king of the microstock photography world. The standards are higher than any other agency and it's most likely that if you are searching for large, high resolution images that are to be used in print, then anything bought and downloaded from iStock will be suitable when viewed at full size.
They also have a number of exclusive photographers, so some of the images you find at iStock may not be available on other microstock sites. They are generally a little more expensive than the other agencies but their browsing and zooming facilities are second to none and you are guaranteed a good image, whatever the intended media.
Shutterstock
This is a subscription only site. You can't just visit Shutterstock and buy a single image, you have to sign up and buy a monthly subscription. After whisch you can download a set number of images per day.
Therefore Shutterstock is not an agency for the occasional microstock buyer. If however you represent a large design agency and you are likely to require large amounts of microstock images on a daily basis for presentations and mock ups then Shutterstock is probably the one for you. Most microstock photographers and illustrators submit their images to Shutterstock as well as the others so you won't really be excluding yourself from much material that's available elsewhere. You'll ending paying less per image too overall.
Fotolia
Second only to iStockphoto on the browsing and zooming facilities, Fotolia is a good site to bookmark as a source of microstock material. You might well be able to pick up some of the same stock cheaper at Fotolia too.
Fotolia is a favorite with European designers and so browsing through their best sellers on any search is likely to produce slightly different results and suggestions to some of the other micros, which can be helpful if you're looking for some alternative ideas. They are also one of the less fussier agencies when it comes to photographer submissions, so you might find some images that were deemed unsuitable by the likes of iStock and Dreamstime, but because they have the facility to zoom in on the images you will be able to satisfy yourself that they meet your requirements.
Dreamstime
One of the big six agencies, Dreamstime ask high technical standards from their photographers, so you are once again guaranteed a high quality download when you buy from here.
Unlike Fotolia and iStock, they don't have the facilty to zoom in on images beyond the standard small enlargement when you put your mouse over the thumbnails. They do seem to have some content that is either exclusive, or simply hard to find on other sites, so they are most definitly a site to visit, particularly if you are having difficulty finding what you need elsewhere. They are also cheaper to buy from than iStock at higher resolutions, although slightly more expensive than Fotolia.
BigStockPhoto
These guys are the most easy going of the bigger agencies when it comes to photographer submissions, and as a result you can often find material at BigStock that simply doesn't appear anywhere else. Often such images are absolutely fine for web use and in situations where high resolution is not called for. Which is handy since the zooming facilities at BigStock don't exist, and the mouse over enlargement facility is one of the poorest.
It's also worthy of note that BigStock often work out cheaper than many of the other agencies, particularly at higher resolutions, so you may well be able to pick up the same image that's available on iStock and save yourself a few dollars in the process.
123RF
Surprisingly, 123RF has one of the more sophisticated zoom facilities of all the microstocks, allowing you to examine the details of images at way beyond full size. They are also slightly more expensive than most on larger resolutions.
They are one of the less fussy micros when it comes to technical quality, but obviously their excellent zoom widget will allow you to satisfy yourself that the image you are buyng is all you hoped it would be. Again this means that you are likely to find images here that are not available at the likes of iStock. They are also happy to carry material of a slightly more adult nature, so if it's female nipples you're looking for, 123Rf is the place for you.
FeaturePics
You're not likely to find anything particularly rare or exclusive at FeaturePics, since they are really designed as a useful link mechanism for photographers to showcase their material and sell it directly from their personal websites. And as such FeaturePics content mirrors that of all the other micro sites.
What you might get there are cheaper images. As they give the photographers a bigger slice of the cake, many price their stock lower than the major microstock sites sell it for and so everybody gets a better deal out of it. FeaturePics have a good zoom facility too so they are always worth a look. But as the photographer sets the price, double check what you are paying before you buy.
CanStockPhoto
The content on the front page of CanStockPhoto often reveals the evidence that they are relatively easy going in what they are going to accept from their photographers. Which means that you might find what you want, you might even find usable content that you wouldn't see elsewhere but you might have to dig a little deeper to find the diamonds.
They certainly aren't the cheapest pricewise, and therefore they are no substitute for BigStockPhoto in the cheap and cheerful department, but they do however have a reasonable zoom facility which BigStock doesn't . Albeit a trifle long winded, as you have to click in and out of particular parts of an image to see the detail.
