Adobe Systems Inc. has announced plans to discontinue its Adobe Stock Photos service effective April 1, 2008. The service enables users of Adobe’s Bridge software to purchase royalty-free images for use in their work. It was introduced in 2005 when Adobe rolled out Creative Suite 2.

“Adobe has decided to concentrate its efforts in other areas,” said the company in a statement posted to the Adobe Stock Photos Web site. In straighter wards-Adobe stock photos don’t bring us any money, the way our world class image editing software brings.

It’s true that me and many of my colleagues use Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks almost every day but never used their stock photos service. Some of us though use similar sort of services, which they consider much more cost effective and rich in resources. I agree with those who thinks Adobe stock photos service just not up to the mark(ex. iStockPhoto and Getty Images) to gain a lead in that stock photography market.

The service will remain fully operational until March 3, 2008. From then through the end of March, comp images will still be available for download.

Adobe has posted instructions for users interested in purchasing or downloading images after March 31, 2008. An image ID converter is being provided to extract the original provider name and image ID number. So users can purchase images directly from the image providers who have supplied content to Adobe Stock Photos in the past.