Photography, illustrations and other images that can be purchased and licensed through a stock photography website like Shutterstock. Stock images are perfect for artistic or themed photography and other artwork, making it unnecessary to create custom-made images or photos. Using stock photography is a common practice for big and smaller magazines alike, though custom images are still used whenever possible or available. Stock photography is not normally used for key graphics like the cover image. The general affect of using stock images is to set the tone for a piece, or depict scenes for which there are not available original photos.