Adobe Unveils Stock Image Interface

Big news this morning as creative application giant Adobe announced their new stock content service, which comes handily integrated into Adobe CC programs and which sources images from the Fotolia database.

About five months ago, Adobe completed their purchase of German based Fotolia, a stock content delivery service.  Stock content providers have been wondering for months what they were going to do with Fotolia, and how this would affect contributors.  Today’s blog post from Fotolia gives a quick overview, with links to more details for contributors, and it seems to mostly be pretty good news.  That’s nice to see in this industry, and it’s something contributors have been hoping for, from a industry leader like Adobe.

Let’s take a quick look at how it works.  This is all new to me, because I’ve never used this part of Photoshop before.  First of all, there is a stand alone stock site, where you can go and license work and download it like any other stock content website.   You can see that download/purchase link for this image in the lower right, below.  You can also see the Adobe watermark on these Fotolia based files.

That isn’t the fun part of the new set up, though.  I’m using Photoshop for these examples.  To use the Adobe Stock functionality, open the “Libraries” window.  Now, you may have to do some account set up here, because you need to “sync” your libraries with your account in the Creative Cloud.  If all is working correctly, you will see Photoshop asking you to sync in the Library window if you aren’t already.  Obviously, this workflow will only function if you have a working Adobe Creative Cloud account.  Under the “My Library” tab, create a new library to hold your stock images.

Now, you will click on that “Search Millions of Photos…” link, which will open a tab or window in your browser to the Adobe Stock site.  Now, when you are doing a search on the Adobe Stock site, some magic will happen.  If you mouse over a thumbnail you like, you will see the option to “Save Preview To Desktop” when you hover over the “download” arrow.  However, if you click on the little arrow to the right of “Desktop”, you will see an option to add it to your Library that you created.  Click on that library name.

Within seconds, it will tell you the image has been saved, and “poof”, it will appear in your Photoshop library window.

You can then drag this image into your document and work with it as a “smart object”.

When your project is done, you head back to the Library window, right click on the image and select the license option.  If you have a plan in place already, it will tell you have many licenses you have available to you to download images.  If you don’t have any, it will offer the option to go back to the Adobe Stock site and license that single image (or purchase other plans).

I’m not going to go further than this step, but I assume that when you purchase the license, it will change the image in your library to the full size, unwatermarked version.  And since it is a smart object, it will auto-magically appear full size in your document.

This is a pretty neat integration.  Everything seems to work seamlessly, and without too much instruction, which is how I like my apps.  This should be a great tool for designers.  Sort of like how Canva is a tool with an integrated library.

By the way, here is my portfolio on Adobe Stock: https://stock.adobe.com/search?creator_id=205335036 , so if there’s anything you’re looking for, and you liked this article, give me a look-see.  Thanks!