On Psdtuts+, we know that artists often rely on stock photography to do their job. Most artists don’t have the budget to hire a photographer, or the time to take a photo on their own; they just need a photo, and they need it as soon as possible. While stock photography is great for some projects, like tutorials, the fact is that stock photography isn’t always the best choice. In this article, I will give you 6 reasons why you should not use stock photography in your photo manipulations and will explain how shooting your own photography, or hiring someone to shoot some photos for you, may not only improve the quality of your work but can also help to make you a better artist.
1. Limited Creativity
You can sketch out the perfect idea but if you can’t find the right stock photo, the whole project could be in jeopardy. If you shoot your own photography, however, you can sketch or plan out your idea, and then shoot the photography that you need to make the project work.
In the image below, from Erik Johansson’s Adobe MAX Keynote, you can see how Johansson constructed a container with a picture frame, some plastic bags, cardboard, and duct tape in order to shoot the exact photo that he needed for his project. Had he relied on stock photography, this project would have had an entirely different outcome.
2. Limited Control
When you use stock photography, you’re often limited to only one photo. What if you want to change something? If you use a stock photo, your only choice is to find another stock photo to augment the one that you have. That means the lighting, background, or any number of other elements won’t match, and that might reduce the realism of your final product.
If you shoot your own photography however, you are likely to have shot more than one photo from the same series. While most of those photos probably aren’t useable on their own, you might be able to use pieces of those photos to augment your primary photo without having to make too many adjustments to the secondary photo.
Since these two photos were taken around the same time, the lighting and background is nearly identical. That means you can easily swap elements like the duck’s head to give you much more control over the look of your final product.
3. Limited Libraries
Let’s be honest, while there are tons of stock photos out there, stock photography sites do have limited options. If you have searched through stock photo libraries before, you probably know that the perfect stock photo for your project rarely exists. Most artists just use a photo that most closely matches the image they think they need. If you shoot your own photography, however, you can shoot the perfect photo for your project without having to make many compromises.
In this speed art video, Erik Johansson shows the entire process of creating his “Cut and Fold” project. In that project, Johansson shot all the photos himself. Had he relied on stock photography for this project, the outcome may have been much different.
4. Inconsistent Quality
While you can do some pretty amazing things using only stock photography, you might find that the photos that you choose were taken with different cameras, are in different resolutions, or were taken under different lighting conditions. If you shoot your own photos, all of those issues can be controlled for a consistent look and feel.
5. Wasted Time
While shooting your own photography can certainly take a lot of time, sourcing stock photos is also an exhaustive process. We have tutorials on Psdtuts+, for instance, that use dozens of stock photos. Searching for those photos took our authors a considerable amount of time; and to add to that, once found, our authors had to spend even more time preparing those photos in Photoshop before they could even begin incorporating them into their scene. By shooting your own photography, you can avoid all that extra work and frustration.
6. Copyright Issues
The last thing you ever want to deal with after spending hours on a project are copyrights. While most stock photography sites give you quite a bit of flexibility, there are limitations to what you can do with the photos that you purchase. If you shoot your own photography, then you’ll never have to worry about who owns the rights to the photos that you use, and you’ll never have to worry about someone making a claim against your art.
Conclusion
Stock photography is great if you are in a jam and need something quick or generic, but it is not always the best choice for commercial photo manipulation projects. If overused, stock photography can reduce the quality of your final product, limit your creative control, and even slow you down. If you would like to learn more about how to take photos on your own, our sister site Phototuts+ is a great resource.
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