I am a fairly heavy user of royalty free image sites with all the creating of product labels, websites, newsletters and mailings. For a very long time I used the subscription service www.clipart.com. They were a bit pricey and didn’t really have the variety I needed for our big publishing pushes. The other major royalty free image sites I looked at were way too expensive or had complex licensing agreements.
I somehow stumbled onto www.Dreamstime.com and gave them a go. I have been using them ever since and am very happy with the cost, the licensing, the quality and variety of images and the usability of the website (it takes a bit of getting used to but it’s great once you figure it out).
I also like that they have the same ethics as we do at www.partnersinrhyme.com, their catalog comes from photographers from all over the world and the profits are shared.
The clipart.com site is a Jupiter Images entity, more of a Big Brother / Microsoft type set up. I’d rather give my money to the struggling artist than the big corp.