Images and visuals: stock banks, illustrations, and AI generation

The raw material of all design

A visual without a strong image quickly falls flat. But the entrepreneur has neither a photo studio nor a budget for a shoot. Fortunately, three sources cover most needs: free stock image banks, illustration and icon libraries, and AI generation. All of it, while respecting usage rights — a point too often neglected that can cost dearly.

Free photo banks

An image found through a Google search is almost never royalty-free: using it commercially exposes you to a claim. Instead, use image banks under free licenses, where photos are free including for commercial use:

• Unsplash: the reference, high-quality photos with a natural look, no required attribution.
• Pexels: free photos and videos, a broad catalog, ideal for backgrounds and moods.
• Pixabay: photos, illustrations, and vectors, a bit more dated but very well stocked.

A reflex to develop: avoid the most cliché stock images (the business handshake, the team laughing in front of a computer). They betray amateurism as much as a bad logo. Look for more authentic visuals, or crop them to make them less generic.

For truly unique photos aligned with your brand, nothing replaces your own shots: a recent smartphone is more than enough, especially when reworked afterward (cropping, consistent filters).

Illustrations and icons

Illustrations and icons structure an interface or a document far better than photos. Reliable, royalty-free sources:

• unDraw: free vector illustrations whose color adapts automatically to your brand. Perfect for sites and presentations.
• Storyset: animatable and customizable illustrations.
• Flaticon and The Noun Project: millions of icons, free with attribution or paid without.
• Lucide and Heroicons: open-source icon sets, clean and consistent, widely used for the web.

The consistency principle applies here too: choose a single style of illustration and icons, and stick to it. Mixing filled and outline icons, or illustrations of different styles, breaks the harmony.

AI image generation

Generative AI has transformed access to custom imagery. Instead of searching for the photo that comes closest to your idea, you describe exactly what you want. The main tools:

• Midjourney (~$10/month): the artistic quality benchmark, ideal for striking visuals, moods, and brand illustrations.
• DALL·E (built into ChatGPT): convenient because it's conversational, good for quick iteration.
• Ideogram: stands out for its ability to embed legible text in the image — useful for visuals with a word or slogan.
• Adobe Firefly: trained on licensed content, which reduces legal risk for commercial use.
• Leonardo.Ai: generous free plan, good for starting without paying.

The quality of an AI image depends directly on your prompt (your description). Specify the subject, the style (photo, flat illustration, watercolor...), the mood, the colors, the framing. Iterate: the first generations serve to refine the request. And stay vigilant on two points: hands and text are still AI's classic weaknesses, and the commercial usage terms vary by tool — check them before publishing.

Retouching without Photoshop

A few free tools cover most of an entrepreneur's retouching:

• remove.bg: cuts out a subject (removes the background) in one click. Indispensable for product or portrait photos. The feature also exists in Canva Pro.
• Photopea: a free Photoshop clone directly in the browser, which even reads PSD files. For occasional advanced retouching.
• Squoosh: compresses images for the web without visible quality loss — essential to avoid slowing down a site.
• Upscale (Upscayl, or built-in features): enlarges a low-resolution image without pixelating it, useful for reusing an old logo or a too-small photo.

The question of rights, in plain terms

Three simple rules to never run into trouble:

1. Never use an image found on Google without checking its license. The fact that it's accessible doesn't make it free.
2. Favor banks under free licenses (Unsplash, Pexels) and content you create yourself.
3. For AI, read the commercial usage terms of the tool used, and be wary of images reproducing an identifiable artist's style, a logo, or a real person's face.

A starter image mini-stack

For an entrepreneur on a tight budget, this combination covers almost everything, for free:

1. Unsplash + Pexels for photos.
2. unDraw + Lucide for consistent illustrations and icons.
3. Leonardo.Ai or DALL·E for occasional custom visuals.
4. remove.bg + Squoosh to cut out and optimize.

What to remember

Custom imagery is no longer a luxury: between royalty-free banks (Unsplash, Pexels), libraries of consistent illustrations and icons (unDraw, Lucide, Flaticon), and AI generation (Midjourney, DALL·E, Ideogram, Firefly), a solo entrepreneur has access to infinite visual material. The discipline comes down to two words: consistency (a single style) and rights (free banks, verified AI terms). For retouching, remove.bg and Photopea replace most of Photoshop. When your needs go beyond fast production and touch interface design, you must move to a dedicated tool: Figma.