Sign up for a free account, purchase credits, and start downloading royalty-free images for as little as 1 credit each.
Images downloads cost between 1 and 6 credits depending on the size and format of the image. Credit packages start at $15 for 5 credits. Buy more credits and the price drops to as little as $0.90 per credit. For details, please see our pricing.
Bigstock images are provided under a royalty-free license, which lets you use them almost any way you please.
A few important exceptions:
For a complete explanation, please read our Image Usage Agreement carefully and see our Usage Examples.
We can help. Please read about Special Licensing.
You will get your credits right away if you pay with a credit card or Google Checkout. If you use an eCheck-funded PayPal transfer, it may take 3 to 4 days for the payment to clear before you receive your credits.
You have one year from the date of purchase to spend your credits.
You can print a receipt from your Purchase History page, which you can find under Your Account
Please visit our How To Download page for common troubleshooting tips, then try your download again. You will not be charged for downloading the same image twice if you do so within 30 days of your first download attempt. If you’re still having trouble, please Contact Us.
No. However, you will not be charged for downloading the same image twice within 30 days of your first download attempt.
No. The watermarks you see when browsing Bigstock will not appear on any image you download.
Yes. The photos remain in our library and can be downloaded later by any Bigstock customer.
We offer medium and large versions of most images. Medium images are normally 1200 pixels on the longest side and offered at 72 DPI (about 1.1 megapixels). Large images can be up to 4500 pixels on the longest side and offered at 300 DPI (ranging from 1.5 megapixels to 14 megapixels).
All Bigstock images can be resized using common image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. When in doubt, the largest size will offer you the most flexibility.
No. The type you see has been outlined as part of the illustration, and the fonts are not included.
Yes. We are one of the only stock image distributors that allows this usage. For a complete explanation, please read our Image Usage Agreement carefully and see our Usage Examples.
If you search for two or more words, Bigstock will return images that match all of those keywords. A search for white house will return all photos with the keywords white and house.
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase. A search for "white house" returns only photos with that phrase as a keyword.
Bigstock understands the common search operators AND, OR and NOT. A plus sign (+) has the same function as AND and a minus sign (-) has the same function as NOT. Each of these operators only affects the term that immediately follows it. So dog NOT cat AND house will return images that match dog and house.
Entering an image ID number, such as 736781, will return that image. Enter multiple image numbers separated by commas (such as 481082, 736781) to return all of those images.
These filters are applied on top of the search you have entered into the search box. So a search for dog with the file type JPEG only will return JPEG files images that match the keyword dog.
Great! Please begin at our Contributor Tutorial.
We pay our contributors $0.50 for each credit spent on standard license images. That means you earn $0.50 to $3 each time a customer downloads one of your images. If you elect to take part in Special Licensing, you can earn up to $60 per image download. You can request a payout when your earnings reach $50.
No. You never lose the copyrights to the images you upload to Bigstock. Please see our Terms of Service for details.
Submitted images go into our Approval Queue for review. It may take a few days for our review team to accept or reject your images. You can check the status of your uploads in Your Account area. Images waiting to be reviewed are labeled “Pending.”
We offer FTP and web-based uploading. Instructions are on our main upload page.
Yes. Clipping Paths are especially useful in photos with a subject isolated over a solid color. Learn more about Clipping Paths.
Yes. Go to the Uploads area of your account and click “Approval Status“ You will see your images and an “Edit” link next to each. Take care to make only relevant edits. Each edit is logged and reviewed, and we may suspend the editing abilities of contributors who make irrelevant edits .
Contributors whose images are consistently approved will have few or no limits on how many images they can submit. However, to keep our approval process moving smoothly, we impose limits on new contributors and those with lower approval percentages.
Images you upload and delete before submitting them to the Approval Queue do not affect your approval rate. However, we may place upload restrictions on users who frequently submit and then delete their images.
Including elements created by other artists is usually not acceptable. Exceptions include Photoshop brushes and cases where you have a license to use the elements you added.
We cannot prevent anyone who has already downloaded your image from using it. However, we usually accommodate requests to remove images from our collection. Please Contact Us with your request. To prevent abuse of our approval process, we will not remove an image that was approved less than 90 days ago.
Yes, as long as you have earned enough in commissions to qualify for a payout. Please use our Contact Us form to make your request, and be sure to tell us if you want your entire commission as credits, or just part of it.
We automatically move your photos soon after you upload them. Please look for them in the Approval Status area in your Account page.
This may be because our system is busy. Please be patient. If your photos have not moved after an hour, please Contact Us.
If you’re still having trouble, please Contact Us.
Yes. Please download our standard Adult Model Release or Minor Model Release and Property Release. You should upload these releases using the Release Manager before you upload your images. Then, in the Edit and Submit area of Uploads, you can assign releases to your images. If a photo depicts three people, it should have three model releases. If several of your photos contain the same model, the model only needs to sign one release, but the release should be assigned to each image of that model.
Yes. Your image will be declined and will appear in your Approval Status area, where you can attach the model release and resubmit it.
If a photo is taken on private property, such as the inside of a home or a business, you should have the owner sign a property release.
Yes. Please read about Editorial Usage.
Yes. You can submit illustrations in AI, PDF, EPS, PNG and PSD format. Please preserve the editing capabilities in these files, since customers expect the ability to modify the files.
For other problems, please Contact Us.
No. We create JPG versions of your illustration automatically.
Yes! You can earn a 35% commission on sales you refer to Bigstock.
While we encourage you to tell others about Bigstock, we do not tolerate spamming.
Please visit the Login Help page to retrieve your password.
Some credit card companies display an attempted charge for a short time, then remove it a few days later. If you think Bigstock has charged your credit card by mistake, please Contact Us.
Please double check your billing address and zip code, and be sure your account has sufficient funds. If you’re still getting an error, please Contact Us.
Once purchased, image credits are not refundable. Please see our Terms of Service for details. If you encounter a quality problem with an image download, please Contact Us for a credit refund.
Yes. Please Contact Us with your request. If you are a contributor, please note that in accordance with our upload agreement, you cannot close your account unless your images have been online for at least 90 days. If you close your account, we will remove your images from Bigstock within 24 to 48 hours. If you close an account with less than $50 in commission earnings, you will forfeit your earnings. Please see our Terms of Service for details.
Check if our e-mail ended up in your junk mail or spam folder by mistake. If you can’t find it, please Contact Us.
Did the link wrap over two lines in your email? If so, be sure to cut and paste both parts of the link together into your web browser's URL bar.
First, follow this link to log out. Then try logging in again at the top of the page. If the trouble persists, you may need to delete your browser cookies. (Consult your web browser’s help menu if you aren’t sure how.) If you continue to experience problems, please Contact Us.
Application Programming Interface. The Bigstock API is a set of programming tools that lets web developers integrate Bigstock into their own sites. Learn more.
Outlines that are saved as part of an image file, readable by many graphics programs. Clipping paths are frequently used to isolate objects in photographs, especially pictures of a subject on a solid color. Learn more about Clipping Paths.
A low-resolution, watermarked image you may download for free. You may only use comping images in draft layouts. They are intended to help you decide if an image is right before you download it.
Dots Per Inch. DPI describes the resolution at which an image is printed. Most printed projects require resolutions of 150 to 300 DPI, while 72 DPI is typical for computer screens. You can change an image’s DPI using Adobe Photoshop and other image editing programs. DPI is distinct from an image’s pixel size, which describes the size of the image file.
News photos and other pictures of recognizable people and places without model or property releases. These images are suitable to illustrate news articles, but are not cleared for commercial use. Learn more about Editorial Use Images.
A collection of images that you create and manage. Lightboxes are perfect for keeping track of images you're considering for a project. Lightboxes can be public or private and you can share a lightbox with friends. To get started visit the Lightboxes.
Short for megapixels, a measure of an image’s size in millions of pixels.
Short for megabytes, the data size of the file.
A phrase used to describe images offered with a broad set of usage rights at a standard price. Bigstock customers do not have to pay a royalty for every copy of the product they’re creating. Please see our Image Usage Agreement for details.
Terms for image needs outside of our regular Image Usage Agreement. To learn more about special licensing, see our pages for buyers and contributors.
Images constructed from lines and shapes. Unlike bitmap images (such as photographs), vector files can generally be scaled up in size without suffering any quality loss.
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