If you’re in the market looking for some fresh stock photos, you no doubt heard of both Fotolia and Adobe Stock. Fotolia has been around for quite some time. They have a reputation for paying their contributing artists fairly and charging a reasonable price for their stock photos.

Honestly, Fotolia has a lot of things going for them. Along with their payment models for both contributing artists and customers, they have a unique and artistic library. Like all stock photo agencies, their library gets bigger every day. With over 40 million stock files, you’re likely to find precisely what you’re looking for.

Some people look down on stock photo footage. They say that you need to have a completely 100 percent unique photo every time. For some things, like images of the products you sell, this may be true. For others, stock photo images are designed to enhance and you can use them for just that purpose.

Fotolia does not accept images that have not been taken by professionals. With that in mind, you can rest easy in the fact that any stock photo you purchase from Fotolia will be a professional photo. However, Adobe Stock might be the better Fotolia alternative.

As a Photoshop user, you recognize the value of stock photos. However, if you haven’t been keeping up with the latest news from Adobe, you may not be aware that Adobe owns Fotolia. In fact, that’s where the entire Adobe Stock library came from. Before Adobe purchased Fotolia, Adobe did not have a stock photo library of their own.

That’s good news for you because Adobe has streamlined the process. As a member of the Creative Cloud, you may be wondering how you can acquire new images from within the applications themselves. You see, previously you had to find your stock photo on a website, purchase it and download it, and then import it into Photoshop.

If you’re looking at becoming a member of Fotolia, consider becoming a member of Adobe’s Creative Cloud instead. You’ll have access to the same library plus it will be integrated and accessible directly from within Photoshop and other applications. You won’t have to close down the application or open a browser session at all.

Before you become a Creative Cloud member with Photoshop, consider adding Adobe Stock to your subscription. You’ll notice that those who subscribe to one of Adobe’s applications will be eligible to receive images from Adobe Stock at a much cheaper rate than those who are Adobe Stock customers only. As a Photoshop user, this puts Adobe Stock directly within your reach – the whole reason why Adobe purchased Fotolia to begin with.