Search Tips

Getting Started     

You can begin a search from any page on our website! Simply start by typing keywords into the search box found near the top of every page and hit enter. A drop down menu from the search field allows you to choose whether to search Rights Managed images, Royalty Free images or BOTH (the default). For more extensive search perameters visit the advanced search page.

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Advanced Search     

The advanced search page gives you quick, simple and reliable access to the StockShop Collection. Search by keyword, image number or photographer's name and get the results you need. Ready to start your search? Click here.

Below is more information about using a Keyword, Image Number or Photographer's Name to find the images you are looking for:

Keyword (for example: Women)
Enter any word or words in the Keyword field and the search engine will return the images that match your keyword(s). Each StockShop image has very specific information associated with it, like a caption, country, state, season, weather, time of day, age group, ethnicity, mood, concepts, and color description. The search engine combs through this information to find matches to your keywords.

Image Number (for example: 5000106001)
Enter an image number image in the Image Number field and the search engine will return the image you are looking for. Each image in the StockShop collection has a specific identification number. This feature is great for re-visiting a familiar image or locating an image on the suggestion of a friend or co-worker.

Photographer's Name
Enter a photographer's name when you only want to see StockShop images by that photographer. Every photographer who has images in the StockShop on-line collection will appear in the Photographer's List. Searching by a photographer's name is a quick way to explore the images of a particular photographer.

Search will return images that contain all the words you have typed into the keyword field. You can use Exact Keyword Searches and Logical Operators to refine your searches.

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Search Within Results     

What if your search is returning too many results? You can narrow them down by choosing to search within current results. After doing a preliminary search, simply add additional keywords in the search field and change the selection from "as a new search" to "within current results" and your results will be refined. For example, if your initial search was for "woman" but you want to narrow this broad category down you could enter "senior" and as along as you select "within current results" your results will only include images with both senior and woman in the description.

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Exact Keyword Search     

What if your search isn't returning the correct images? For example, maybe you are searching for baby boomers and your results include both babies and baby boomers. When this happens, we suggest doing an Exact Keyword Search by putting quotation marks around the word or words you are searching for (for example, "keyword/s"). StockShop's search engine will ONLY return images containing the exact word or words. For example: If you search for "baby boomer" with quotes the search engine will NOT return images with "baby" in the description unless it is followed by "boomer".

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Logical Operators     

When your search results are either too specific or not as specific as you want, you have several options. In addition to trying Exact Keyword Search, you can use a Logical Operator to modify your search keywords. Logical Operators are linking words like AND, OR and NOT, which combine the criteria and allow you to narrow or broaden your search. Enter a Logical Operator with your keywords as part of a search.

Use AND, OR and NOT in the following ways for the best results:

Search for: women AND children and the search engine will return images with the word women AND the word children in their descriptions.

Search for challenge OR competition and the search engine will return images with the word challenge OR the word competition in their description.

Search for child NOT boy and the search engine will return images that contain the word child and NOT the word boy in their description. This way you only get images of children that are girls.

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