Two years after launching, Adobe Stock is now 90 million images strong and continuing to grow. With that much content available, Adobe announced two new features will make it easier to sift through: an artificial intelligence-based search filters and a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in. The company is also expanding its editorial collection, through partnerships with Reuters and USA Today Sports. And, Stocksy’s collection will also join Adobe Stock as a premium collection.
As Adobe Stock’s number of images continues to grow, Sensei, the company’s artificial intelligence system, is powering more ways to find the right shot. With the new Aesthetic Filters, users can now filter images by both the depth of field (the amount of background blur) and the amount of color. The search filters, now in public beta testing, allows users to adjust sliders for sorting out images to better match the look they are going for.
“When an image is uploaded, Adobe Stock uses machine learning to return images with similar visual and semantic characteristics, which can be further refined with keywords,” Adobe says.
The depth of field slider allows users to choose more blur for added drama, while images with the least amount of blur tend to include more people in them.
The “vivid color” search parameter allows users to choose whether they are looking for a shot with a more muted look or an image with bright colors. The brighter side of the slider doesn’t dig up colors that are artificially saturated, Adobe says, but includes objects and surroundings that are more bright naturally.
The features, for now, are only live on the web-based version of Adobe Stock. Adobe expects to bring the features directly into the search function within Adobe Creative Cloud applications, which allows users to find stock photos without leaving programs like Photoshop. Additional atheistic filters are also in the works.
The new search parameters will come in handy since the Adobe Stock collection is getting even bigger, thanks to newly added editorial and premium content from Reuters, USA Today Sports, and Stocksy. The Reuters collaboration brings the news service’s editorial content starting today, while sports photography will launch shortly with the USA Today Sports partnership.
“Stock content is mainly models, people you don’t know,” Claude Alexander, the vice president of Adobe Stock, told Digital Trends. “Editorial is strictly the opposite, real people in real places doing real things.”
Since the editorial images are geared toward different users than the stock and commercial images, the collections will remain separate. Search filters allow users to include or exclude editorial images – editorial is excluded from the search by default. Adobe plans on adding the ability to narrow searches inside the editorial collection by date, but the feature isn’t part of today’s launch.
Reuters is the largest global news organization in the world and the new partnership brings 12 million new images and 300,000 video clips to the platform. Today’s announcement finalizes an earlier agreement that gradually added 12 million Reuters archives over the first-half of 2017. Now, new content will be added daily, covering a range of topics from events to celebrities. When the USA Today Sports collection becomes active, it will cover 10,000 events a year, including all major sports leagues such as the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.
Stocksy is the third new partnership announced, bringing a “distinctive, beautiful and highly-usable” set of images to the Premium Collection, Adobe says. The collection brings about 400,000 new stock photos.
One of the biggest reasons current customers like using Adobe Stock, Adobe says, is the direct integration with a number of Adobe platforms, making it easier to buy – and even sell – without leaving the program. That capability is now extending outside the Adobe Creative Cloud family with the launch of a plug-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, for both Mac and Windows. Users can find the plug-in by accessing the store from the Insert tab. Prices for PowerPoint users are the same as stock prices for CC users. Search tools are also similar, with the ability to search by text or by uploading an image.
The new partnership will bring Adobe Stock’s total images to well over 100 million, with daily additions expected for the editorial collection.
