Adobe Stock is a service that provides designers and businesses with access to millions of high-quality curated and royalty-free photos, videos, illustrations, vector graphics, 3D assets, and templates for all their creative projects. You can purchase Adobe Stock as a multi-asset subscription. Various subscription packages are available.
Last updated on
7 May 2024
Learn how to use the Adobe Stock website to explore and license stock assets.
You can explore, preview, and license assets using either the Adobe Stock website or from within the Creative Cloud apps integrated with Adobe Stock.
Note:
Adobe Stock is deeply integrated with several Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, Dreamweaver, and After Effects. If you're looking for information on using Adobe Stock from within these apps, see Using Adobe Stock in Creative Cloud apps.
Explore and license stock assets
You can explore and license several types of assets on the Adobe Stock website. Follow these steps:
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On the Stock website, sign in using your Adobe ID.
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(Optional) To search for a particular type of Adobe Stock asset, choose one of the following tabs: Images, Videos, Templates, 3D, Premium, and Editorial.
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Search for stock assets appropriate for your project. On the results page, switch between the All, Images, Videos, Templates, and 3D search results as appropriate using the drop-down menu on the left of the search bar.
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Optionally, filter the search results. You can filter the results by price, sub-category, presence of people, image orientation, color, and so on. Different filter parameters are available for different asset types. For example, you can filter images by applying aesthetic filters such as the depth of field and vivid color. The search results are displayed as soon as you adjust the filter parameters.
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When you've found a stock asset of interest, download its licensed version to your computer.
Note:Stock allows you to auto-save assets to a library of your choice, and auto-download them to your machine. Both of these functionalities are enabled by default.
To license and download an asset, do the following:
a. Click the asset of your choice to get the detailed description page.
b. Click License next to the asset.
Note:In case you don't have an Adobe Stock subscription or purchased credit packs, you will get a window to pay for the asset. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the transaction.
License Adobe Stock assets License Adobe Stock assets c. Click License in the pop-up window that appears. The asset gets added to the default Stock library and gets downloaded to your machine.
To change the default Stock library, click Manage in the Asset has been licensed notification in the upper-right corner of the window. Choose the library of your choice or create a new library. All the future assets get saved to this library.
You can also disable the auto-save and auto-download functionalities. If you disabled auto-save and then license an asset, the asset gets added to the Downloads library.
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Import the downloaded stock asset into your design or authoring app.
Notes:
- You may want to preview several watermarked stock assets on the Adobe Stock website before you download the licensed version of the one most appropriate for your project.
- Instead of downloading the licensed version of the asset, you can choose to download just a preview of it to your device. To do so, in Step 5 above, click the Download Preview icon.
Open assets in a supported app
While exploring assets on the Stock website, you can open them directly in supported Creative Cloud apps. Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects currently support this functionality.
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On the Stock website, sign in using your Adobe ID.
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(Optional) To search for a particular type of Adobe Stock asset, choose one of the following tabs: Images, Videos, Templates, 3D, Premium, and Editorial.
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Search for stock assets appropriate for your project. On the results page, switch between the All, Images, Videos, Templates, and 3D search results as appropriate using the drop-down menu on the left of the search bar.
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When you've found a stock asset of interest, open it directly in your Creative Cloud desktop app of choice. Follow these steps:
Click the asset. Click Open in App to the right of the asset.
Adobe Stock opens the asset in the chosen Creative Cloud desktop app. Before opening the asset, Adobe Stock places it in a library named Downloads.
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Follow steps 2 and beyond in Search for and license assets in the Libraries panel.
Use visual search to find the perfect stock image
Find similar images by content, color, composition, or all attributes
The visual search functionality on the Stock website lets you quickly find stock images similar to another asset. Learn how to find assets similar to another asset.
Library items on Stock website
Libraries on the Stock website only show your Stock assets. The count of items shown within each library indicates the number of Stock assets out of the total library items. To see all the Creative Cloud assets including your Stock assets, go to Your Work.
For example, if you have ten items in total in a library and two of them are Stock assets, you can only see those two assets on the Stock website. To see all ten items, go to the Your Work website.
Manage Adobe Stock assets added to your libraries
You can view and manage Adobe Stock assets that you've added to your libraries.
Click Libraries and choose the desired library from the drop-down list. To view all your libraries, choose View All.
Rename a library
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Click the library you want to rename.
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Click
in the bottom-right corner of the library and then choose Rename Library. -
Enter a name in the text box.
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Click
.
Delete a library
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Click
in the bottom-right corner of the library and then choose Delete Library. -
In the pop-up box, click Delete.
Create a library
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Click Libraries in the upper-right corner of the screen and then choose View All.
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In the empty box, enter a name for the new library.
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Click
to create the library.
Manage assets added to your library
Open your library and hover the mouse over an asset to view the available options. You can do the following using the Adobe Stock website:
- License the asset
- Save a preview of the desired asset
- Download a preview of the asset
- Find similar Adobe Stock assets
- Delete the asset
Send the link to a library
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Click
in the bottom-right corner of the library and then choose Send Link.
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Share the library using the Send Link workflow. See Share libraries for more information.
View your license history
On the License History page of the Adobe Stock website, you can view a list of the assets you've licensed as well as the number of images left in your subscription.
- View the License History page.
Note:
If you have licensed an image, you can download it again without relicensing. Click the File ID in the License History and save the asset to your computer.