Stock Graphics
Finding and Branding Adobe Stock Images
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General Tips
You will need to have your Adobe Creative Account activated and Adobe Illustrator downloaded before beginning this tutorial.
We have an Adobe Stock subscription that allows 25 stock image licenses a month. Any unused licenses accumulate to the end of the fiscal year. At the end of the year, any allotted downloads that have not been used are lost - Use it or lose it!
Vector illustrations are preferred over photography or other illustration formats.
Don’t save an image to the shared drive until you have edited it.
It is typically helpful for sizing and consistency to have padding, or a white box, around the image. If you'd like help using or creating a graphic with padding, reach out to the ASU Team Chat.
Login credentials to access and download stock graphics:
Go to: stock.adobe.com
Login email: umais@maine.edu
Password: WeR1Team
Use pre-made color branded stock images
You can find stock images that have already been recolored to fit our brand in our shared ASU Google Drive > Branding > Graphic Assets > Illustrations > Color Branded Stock Images
Finding and Selecting Stock Images
Log into Adobe Stock. Go to: stock.adobe.com
Login email: umais@maine.edu
Password: WeR1TeamOnce you are logged in to Adobe Stock, use the main search bar to find images related to your branding materials. For example, the library might search for “students reading” or “students studying.”
Because we prefer vector graphics over stock photography, you'll want to use the filter button on the far left-side of the screen to filter for vector images only.
NOTE: You can click on individual images to enlarge them and get more information on them, such as file type and size, category, artist, similar images, etc.
Once you have an image you’d like to use, you can click the “License” button. If the image has already been licensed, you will see a check mark and “Licensed”
at the bottom of the image.
Once you click “License,” the image will automatically be saved to our shared image library in Adobe, as well as download to your computer.
Adding and Saving UMA Primary Colors in Illustrator
BJ will share a color library with you called “UMA Prime Brand.” Once it’s shared with you and you accept it, the color library will show up in the “Libraries” section of Illustrator.
Right click on the UMA Prime Brand colors
Select “Add theme to swatches.”
The colors will then appear in the swatches tab, beneath the pre-loaded color swatches.
4. With the swatch still selected (you can tell it’s selected because of the thin white lines around each color box), click on the library icon at the bottom of the swatch window.
5. click on the first option on the menu, “Save Swatches.”
6. You can choose a name for the library (UMA Primary, or UMA Colors would probably make sense), and then click save.
To access this saved swatch in the future, go to the same library icon, and go to “User Defined,” it’s the second from the last option. The UMA color library is now saved here and you can access it in any Illustrator document.
The swatch library menu is at the bottom-left corner of your swatches dialog box.
Changing Stock Image Colors to UMA Colors
Once you have a stock image that you’ve downloaded and your UMA color swatch is saved, you can open the image in Illustrator. Now you’ll want to change the colors to “UMA-ify” the image.
With your selector tool (the black-filled arrow) click and drag over the entire image to select it.
NOTE: There may be a random box that is sitting on top of the image that will move when you first try to select the image, just delete that box.
The selection tool is the black-filled arrow in the top-left corner of your workspace. It's the default tool in Illustrator so it will probably already be selected when you open Illustrator.
2. With the whole image selected, you’ll see a color wheel at the top-center area of your window.
I have selected every element of this design by clicking and dragging over everything using my selection arrow. The color wheel box is in the top-center area of my workspace.
3. Click the color wheel icon and a new window will open.
4. Use the top dropdown menu, “Color Library,” and go to “User Defined” and then you can select your UMA Prime colors.
NOTE: You can click and drag the color window to the right or left to better see your image.
5. Then click outside of the color wheel dialog box to close it.
My color wheel dialog box is open and I have selected "UMA Prime" from the Color Library dropdown menu. The colors were automatically changed to UMA colors.
Changing Individual Elements
Our UMA color branded image looks pretty good but the green background with the green head of the student looks a little funny. You can change individual elements of a graphic to balance the colors.
To select and isolate an individual element, double click it.
NOTE: There are several layers of elements in most stock images, you may have to double-click a few times to get to the specific element that you want to change.
Once the image is isolated, you'll see that the other elements are slightly fainter and the element you've selected will be pulled to the "front."
You can then use the color box in the top-left corner to change the color.
Once you've found a color you like, you can exit the element isolation mode by clicking anywhere outside of your image and toolbars.
Above: The green background is selected and pulled to the front of my workspace. All the other elements in the image are faded and in the background. Below: The color box is in the top-left corner. Here, I've chosen a brown tone to use for the background.
Ta-da! Here is my UMA-branded image with the background shape changed to brown instead of green
Exporting Your Image
What a beautiful image you’ve made! Now you can export it to incorporate into another document or share as-is.
Go to File and then Export, and select Export As. You can select the file format (you’ll typically want PNG or JPEG), name and location of where you want to save the file.
Naming convention: All stock images will download with the same naming convention: AdobeStock_[stock ID number].ai
Keep the Adobe Stock ID number in the file name, but rename the AdobeStock portion to a keyword that will make it easy for you to find and use the image. (ex: students_studying_3386197761.ai)
After you click Export, you’ll get another window where you can select the image resolution, and some other details.
NOTE: Images that will be online-only do not typically need to be a high resolution. 150 or 72 ppi are probably good. Images for print are typically 300 ppi. The Color Mode, Compression Method, and Anti-aliasing options can stay where they are.
Click ok and you're good to go!