How-to: Finding Free Stock Photos For Your Presentation

They say a picture is worth a thousand words— but how much is that actually worth in your wallet? 

Imagery is a strong tool for many different aspects of a business. From marketing assets and sales collateral to pitch decks and proposals, good photography can take your efforts to the next level. But where do you find the images you need? The way we see it, companies have two options; 1) take the photos themselves in-house, or 2) outsource by way of stock photography websites or freelance photographers. Obviously with the latter, you run the risk of being hit with licensing costs and usage agreements. 

But maybe it doesn’t have to be that hard. 

In this blog, we share the importance of photography in presentations, when it’s acceptable for your presentation to include a photo found on the internet, and how to find free stock photos in Beautiful.ai. Let’s dive in. 

The power of photos in presentations

It’s no secret that images are important in presentations, they help put your story in context for your audience. Collectively, your audience remembers 80 percent of what they see, as opposed to 20 percent of what they read and 10 percent of what they hear. We’re visual learners, there’s no doubt about it. So it goes without saying that strong visuals can help your presentation land better with your audience. 

The power of photos in presentations is three-fold. 

Branding

Images support the overall branding of your presentation. Any image you use should be consistent with your story, and your brand. Selecting high quality images for your presentation that align with your other marketing assets will help build trust and familiarity with your audience. 

Engagement

If there’s a slide full of text, and a slide with one big, beautiful image, which one will your eyes be drawn to? We’d be willing to bet it’s the image. By using relevant imagery within your presentation, you’re demanding the attention of your audience and keeping them more engaged than they would have been otherwise. 

Retention

As we mentioned above, your audience will remember what they see before they’ll remember what they read. In fact, research done by 3M (the OG’s of Post-it Notes), revealed that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text. Consider that when you’re deciding whether to use a text box or an image to drive a point home. Using the right imagery can help those with (and even those without) photographic memories remember what you told them long after they’ve left the meeting. 

When is it acceptable for your presentation to include a photo found on the internet?

The million dollar question: what images are you actually able to use without paying for usage rights? It depends on what you need it for. Wanting a free stock photo for commercial use is different from using a stock photo for a class presentation. But you can check the licensing all the same. If you’re googling specific photos, you can toggle between usage rights in the image search tools to see what images are okay to snag from the Internet and repurpose for business or personal use. That said, stock photography websites are generally a safe zone as all of their photos are royalty-free and available for download with the click of a button. Some of our favorites are Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash. 

Finding the best free stock photos in Beautiful.ai

Finding free stock photos anywhere on the internet is relatively easy. There are plenty of stock imagery websites that offer royalty-free photography and free downloads. But when you’re elbows deep in your presentation, and really cranking away at your slides, the last thing you want to do is leave the presentation to scour the internet for the perfect photo, then have to download it, re-open your slide and upload the photo to your deck. So, we removed two of those steps for you. 

Beautiful.ai offers hundreds of thousands of free images right within the product. When you want to add an image to the slide, you can simply click the camera icon and search our free library without ever having to leave your presentation. You can instantly see which images work with your content without having to go back and forth from Google to your deck. 

With stock photography there’s always a preconceived notion that everything is too “stocky”, AKA stale, dated images. We don’t want that for you, or your presentation, so we pulled in hundreds of thousands of free images from some of the top stock photography websites so that there's truly something for everyone, every team, and every story.