A little while ago Adobe acquired the stock image website Fotolia and integration with the Creative Cloud was inevitable, but just how easy is it to get images from Adobe Stock to Photoshop?

Finding an Image

Right now images have to be searched and added to your account through a web browser. Although it’s easy to open thanks to a hyperlink inside Photoshop it does seem a little jaded but today’s 1-click expectations.

Searching Adobe Stock

The front page of Adobe Stock is the search page which helps, and a quick search here gets you going;

You can see you get the choice of the type of file you’re after here and can limit the search to photos, illustration or vectors.

Licensing or Refining the Search

Clicking on a choice you’ll be presented with a larger version of the image with some choices;

License and Save to My Library

Clicking this will buy a license the image and save it to the desired location. In this case, My Library, but a drop-down menu here can change the location of the Library.

A word of caution here. Changing the location for the download will license the file. This isn’t something you can do on an image so that its set for when you need it. This is a sticky setting too so the named Library will be the default next time you visit.

Save Preview to My Library

Again, this can be changed to a different Library. This will download a low resolution, watermarked version of the file, ideal if you want to check to see if it fits with your image or composition.

Find Similar

As the name suggests this will find similar images based on keywords associated with the starting image and the set that its in.

Retrieving Your Image

In this case, I’ll choose to save the image to a Library called Stock on my Creative Cloud. After a couple of seconds the image is marked as a license to me;

Back in Photoshop open the Libraries Panel via the menu;

Or if its already on screen and collapsed, double-clicking on its Panel title;

Next open the library you saved your image too;

In the Library, you’ll find the image there waiting for you.

To open the image, double-click the thumbnail in the Library Panel. To add it to an existing image click and drag the image from the Library Panel to the image. Itll be added as a Smart Object.

You’ll notice too that there’s a little Cloud icon on the layer letting us know this is from the Library.

Images used in this demo:

Famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign with vintage texture

A Secret Agent taking aim with his pistol