Whether you’re a blog writer, social media user, public speaker, or have an image-heavy website, you’ll need high-quality images to support your project. Garden communicators rely heavily on those images—they need to be clear, high resolution, and beautiful. If you’re also a photographer, you’ve got it made. But even then, you may not have the exact image you need when you need it, so you’ll want to investigate sourcing. Here are some of our favorites—and favorites of our colleagues!
Free Sources
Let’s be honest. We’re usually looking for a free image to include in our work. This is especially true when you have a quick one-off social media post or a number of images to fill out for a presentation.
- Your own images. Of course, we had to start with this one. With all of the garden tours, garden trips, and garden shows you’ve attended over the years, you likely have quite a library of images. Now, if you’re not a photographer and your images aren’t all that great, then consider another source.
- Canva. This is one of our favorites. There’s a free Canva option as well as a pro (paid) option for accounts. You have access to most of the image library for the free account, and that includes photos and graphics. We started with the free Canva account and then popped up to the Pro account (details in next section) because of the increased options.
- Unsplash. We haven’t personally used Unsplash, but many of our colleagues report that it’s one of their go-to sources for free images.
- Pixabay. This is a decent source for free images, but not all are of the top quality you might be looking for. Still, it’s worth a peek if you need a general image and don’t want to pay.
- Pexels. While we have no experience with Pexels, our review of the site tells us that the images are more artful and moodier than other stock image sites.
Paid Sources
When do you need to use a paid source? Anytime you want or need a spectacular image and one that is paramount to your project. (Caveat: We often use the $1 images in the Canva Pro account for regular social media posts because, well, $1.)
Note: You’ll need to dive in to explore all the features, rather than simply looking at price here. Shutterstock, for example, offers slightly different features than Canva or Envato, so your choice depends upon what your needs are.
- Shutterstock. Shutterstock is a favorite because of the high quality of the images and access to flat lays, vector images, music, video, and more. The paid plans start at $29/month and go up to almost $500 for teams/companies/heavy users. You save if you sign up for a monthly download contract as opposed to a month-by-month plan.
- Shutterstock. Shutterstock is a favorite because of the high quality of the images and access to flat lays, vector images, music, video, and more. The paid plans start at $29/month and go up to almost $500 for teams/companies/heavy users. You save if you sign up for a monthly download contract as opposed to a month-by-month plan.
- Envato Elements. At $16.50/month, this is one of the less expensive options for a large range of quality images, and we know many people for whom Envato is their #1 choice. Their library includes not only images, but sound effects, templates for video, graphics, and presentations.
- Colleagues’ images. Yes, if they’re one of your besties, you might get it for free, but in general, offer to pay for the image. Tell them you’re interested in using one of their images and inquire about what their terms are. One of the complaints we hear often is that our industry professionals don’t want to pay for the talent of one of their colleagues—we know most of us aren’t fabulously wealthy, but to be honest, your budget is your issue and not your colleagues’. Do the right thing and pony up payment.
Do you have a favorite stock image source that we didn’t list? Please do let us know—we are always updating our resources lists for ourselves and our colleagues.
