Can I use stock images for editorial purposes?

Can I put this next to a news story? Yes, provided you caption it honestly. That single sentence covers most of what people mean when they ask about editorial use, but the distinction between editorial and commercial use is worth understanding properly, because it changes how you label an image, not whether you may use it.

What editorial use means

Editorial use is any use that informs, comments, teaches or illustrates a topic. A blog post explaining inflation, a newsletter about urban cycling, a lecture slide on coastal erosion, a review of a novel: each of these uses an image to support a message rather than to sell something. The image is context, not merchandise.

Commercial use is the other side. If the image helps sell a product, promote a service, attract customers or build a brand, it is commercial. A banner ad, a product landing page, a packaging mock-up, a sponsored post, a shop sign.

Many projects sit in between, and that is fine. A company blog is editorial in tone even though the company exists to sell. A charity campaign is promotion even though nobody profits. You do not need to classify with precision, because the license permits both editorial and commercial use of stock images from Affordable Stock Images. The only thing that shifts is how you present the picture.

The illustration rule

Everything in this library is AI-assisted stock imagery. That has one consequence for editorial work that traditional photography does not have: these images are illustrations, not records. A picture of a flooded street was not taken in a flooded street. A portrait of a tired nurse is not a nurse.

So the rule is simple. Never present one of these stock images as a photograph of a real event, a real place or a real person. When it sits next to reporting, caption it as illustrative. "Illustration", "AI-generated illustration" or "Image for illustrative purposes" all work. Readers are used to this labelling now, and it protects you from the accusation that you staged or faked a news photograph.

This matters most where the story is about something specific. An article about a particular flood in a particular town should not carry an image implying it shows that town. An article about flooding in general can carry it without any awkwardness, as long as the caption is honest.

Two worked examples

A university course handout. A lecturer preparing a reader on renewable energy wants a striking image of wind turbines on a hillside for the cover and a few in-line pictures to break up the text. That is editorial use: teaching. The license covers it, whether the handout is printed for the class or uploaded to the learning platform. The lecturer should mark the images as illustrations in the credits or the caption, and should not claim the turbines are a specific farm the course discusses. If the university later sells the reader as a paid textbook, that becomes commercial, and it is still permitted.

A podcast cover. A weekly show about sleep science needs cover art for the podcast directories. Cover art promotes the show, so this is commercial use. Try a search for sleep, pick an image, download it, crop it square, add the title. No further permission is needed. The only caution is the same one as before: do not build the cover around an implication that the calm sleeper pictured is the host or a guest.

Quick checklist

• Editorial or commercial, both are allowed under the license.
• Caption or credit the image as an illustration wherever it accompanies reporting or factual claims.
• Do not attach it to a specific real event, location or individual.
• Do not add a real person's name, a logo or a trademark to imply an endorsement.

If you are unsure whether a particular caption is honest enough, imagine a reader who assumes every picture on a news page is a photograph. Would they be misled? If not, you are done. For related questions about credit lines and attribution, see the FAQ index.