I started my graphic design journey over (20) years ago when we were still using early versions of Adobe Photoshop, some of which my hacker buddies at the time, may have possibly "borrowed." In those days, people were enjoying a fresh spring season of shareware services like Napster and Limewire, just to name a few, which gave us access to the best and most un-affordable software. Although both services were eventually sued for copyright infringement, users at the time were able to create music, downlaod music, edit images, and to some extent make short videos -- all with the help of these enablers.
The problem we always encountered however was with accessing stock images. Some companies sold the images as CDs (compact discs) which had hundreds of simple images ranging from picnics, to merchandise, animals, or cool backgrounds which you could use royalty-free for marketing purposes and the such. Eventually as technology evolved, things got cheaper, smaller, and more accessible; except for stock images. That is, until Artificial Intelligence and its buddies showed up to end the party -- our knights in shining armor.
Some of the current popular services where users can find all kinds of stock images are listed below, each with different options and pricing that range from "free" to upwards of $300 USD per image. Obviously we want the creator of the photo to get their cut, but at what cost? Why would I pay $45 for a stock image of white leather skates for figure skating, when I can just prompt away on services like Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT's Dall-E, Wix images, and so many other endless options? My prediction: stock images are on the chopping block.
Some current popular services for stock image providers include:
Shutterstock
Adobe Stock
iStock
Getty Images
Depositphotos
Alamy
Dreamstime
Pexels
Unsplash
Vecteezy
This short list offers users many options including bundles, .png files, animated gifs, vector images, and videos. They have massive libraries of content that is usually high-quality and available to license.
Now consider that generative AI, depending on one's level of understanding on how to write effective prompts and depending on which AI service someone is using, both work together to create images that can be high quality or high disappointment. It takes time to learn how to prompt effectively and how to generate the best images. And the best part? The results are pretty much limited only by your imagination and can often spark creativity in unforeseen directions for other ideas. This gives AI the competitive edge, because instead of paying for one stock image, users of generative AI can make multiple images, continuously prompting until they get the desired result. Fees for generative AI services range from $20 USD per month or you may need to buy credits.
For those who are still not using generative AI to make their own images, they need to resort to either taking their own pictures or buying stock images. But the future for these current services for stock images will depend on if they adopt generative AI options. They can no longer survive on just stock images, they need to offer the customer more choices.
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