Refine your searches when looking for stock media

There may be some search or keyword terms that will help you even more with your projects. We have a helpful list of search term tips to help you get there.

These are some of the lesser-known words that might be helpful getting the exact kind of images you need:

  • With “isolated” or “cutout” you can quickly find images of people or objects on a typical white background that can easily be integrated into designs. Excluding those terms will show you more images in a realistic environment, so this works both ways
  • While “People” is obvious, “nobody” doesn't come to mind so easily if you are looking for an empty office
  • Child“, “Adult“, “Mature Adult“, “Senior” can be used to reduce the search results to an age range
  • “African American” or “Asian” might sound known if you are specifically looking for someone from those ethnicities. “Caucasian” is a lesser known term and can be used to find those people from European descent
  • Copy Space” (or “copyspace”) indicates images where the photographer has left some part of the image blurred or open to allow easy addition of text for an ad
  • “Blur” or “Bokeh” will give you image results of images with blur or unfocused backgrounds
  • “Streak” will give you long exposure images of streaming lights

This page contains information I gathered and thought were very useful. See more notes on programming.

Just to let you know, this page was last updated Tuesday, Mar 19 24