Stock Photo and Illustration Sites
Best Paid Stock Photo and Illustration Sites
| Crestock | Good selection of photos, illustrations and icons. | Buy single images or download 20 a day with a subscription. Subscribe to their RSS feed and get one free image a day. |
| DIY eLearning | Nice illustrations of characters in different poses. Characters are in medical, business and casual attire. | Sold in bundles with multiple characters or packs with a single character. |
| eLearning Art | Great selection of people cutouts in professional, casual and medical clothes and also sets of phone people. Backgrounds and silhouettes. | Buy by the pack. |
| eLearning Brothers | People Cutouts: Excellent selection of cutout people and illustrated characters in many different poses. Also photos of workplace backgrounds. | Buy by the pack. |
| Graphic River | Inexpensive design elements, such as PowerPoint templates, backgrounds, textures and illustrations. | Pay by the graphic. Great prices! |
| istockphoto | The original member-generated stock photo and illustration site with a good selection of photos, illustrations, Flash animations, video and audio. | Buy credits in bundles to purchase individual items or subscribe. Plans are for 3 months, 6 months and 1 year. |
| Jupiter Images | High quality pricey images. The high-res photos are often used in print. | Subscription plans and buy individual photos. |
| Nuggethead Studioz | Excellent set of diverse, hand-drawn characters that can be edited/modified right in PowerPoint. | Sold in 16-pose bundles by character or large bundle of all characters packaged together. |
| Photos.com | Popular subscription stock photo site with a good collection of professional photos. | Subscription plan or buy individual photos. |
| Presenter People | Several illustrated characters dressed in business attire and in various poses. (Could use more diversity) | Priced by the package. |
| Shutterstock | Over 15 million photos and illustrations as well as video footage. They also have a free photo and vector graphic every week. | Subscription plans or pay for a group of downloads. |
| Thinkstock | An aggregate of several stock photo services. Though they only offer a portion of the media from other services, the selection is good. | Subscription plans or buy images in packs of 5, 25, 100 and 250. |
| Veer | Great selection of photos and illustrations. Good search filters. Creative illustrations. | Buy credits (and save) or pay by the image. |
Animation, Clip Art and Cartoons
| Animation Factory | Large collection (over 500,000 according to the site) of animated clipart and motion designs. Can be used in PowerPoint, video, Flash and websites. | Various membership plans. |
| Caricature King | An artist caricature site that offers celebrity caricatures. | Free for non-commercial use. Must include the site url (which is on the drawing). |
| Clipart.com | Large collection of stock clipart, some photos and vector illustrations. | Subscribe by the week, month or year. (I use clip art to illustrate elements in diagrams.) |
| Clipart Connection | Large collection of clip art and illustrations. Some overlap with clipart.com | Subscribe the week, month or year. |
| iClipart | Good collection of clipart, animations, illustrations and fonts. | Lost of subscription options. |
Medical and Scientific Graphics
| A.D.A.M. Images | Library of 30,000 top-of-the-line medical illustrations. | Varies by individual image, product line and your usage. It's rarely cheap. |
| Custom Medical Stock Photos | This looks like a good selection of medically-oriented photos. | Must login or register to get pricing of individual photos. |
| Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) | A digital repository of 22,000 medical education resources, including medical illustrations, animations and photos. | Free with registration. [July 30, 2012: Site is temporarily down for maintenance] |
| Russell Knightly Media | Scientific and medical illustration and animation. | Varied pricing packages. |
| Science Photo | Impressive scientific photos and video footage as well as some standard stock in high-res format. | Priced by the image. Some products require registration for pricing info. |
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