DreamstimeReviews 1,260

I was a loyal dreamstime customer for several years - the photos were affordable, imaginative and varied. In fact, I used to use Dreamstime to generate ideas when I was stuck: I'd put a conceptual word into the search box and would be delighted with the range of beautiful and abstract ways of representing my words, sometimes so perfect it would change the whole concept behind the promotion or artwork I was doing.

Now though, it's almost completely useless.

- The quality control on the photographs is poor: the search results are saturated with awful vector art that would have looked at home in Microsoft's clip art galleries of the early 90s, and the photos are bland, staged shots with unconvincing models holding bits of paper or some kind of 3D representation of the actual word, not artful conceptual photos
- The price of photos over the years has crept up to the point that you'd be lucky to get 2 decent photos with a bundle of credits. It no longer beats the competitors on price
- It's highly Americanised - do your contributing photographers include anyone from around the world anymore? I've grown used to searching for 'faucet' instead of 'tap' for example, but the results for any search rarely contain imagery that would be quintessential in other countries. I can rarely find anything relevant to our UK markets now.

I don't know if this is all just the price of popularity - all of the second-rate image peddlers jump on the bandwagon and suddenly the searches are hopeless and the prices jump up - or the result of "improvements" to the site. Please, whatever is happening, find out what's causing the noticeable decline in quality and put it right... or lose loyal customers.

I find dreamstime my favorite just because I can download good quality previews. I hate poor quality and low-res previews often offered by other stocks, which make concept presentations too weak. Also I had few issues with lost pictures and my contact with dreams time services was always very fast and smooth. If I could change anything - I would love too see a scroll for changing thumbnails size - in times of large resolution screens this would help searching.

I made a one-time purchase and then they started charging my PayPal every month without notifying me. I only found out by checking my PayPal account. And Dreamstime gave me nothing in return -- when I tried to sign in, Dreamstime did not recognize my email. So I had no Dreamstime account even if I wanted one. This is a problem for many people. Anyone is welcome to contact me for more information and to compare notes. Saiedkashani at gmail. Also their 5-star reviews look fake. Look at the reviewers: every one posted only 1 review, no other reviews, no helpful votes, and every reviewer was created the same month the review was posted.

I use Dreamstime only when I have a specific image that a client has asked for and it is not available on any other stock image site. I find Dreamstime extremely expensive and my clients prefer not to pay that much. I use Dollar Photo Club for stock photos whenever possible, sometimes BigStock and very occasionally, Dreamstime. I always look at the others first because they cost much less.