Most web professionals have come to rely on stock photography services for their day to day work. These sites have become a huge and integral part of the design industry that is always in need of fresh imagery for the thousands of websites that go online every day. One of the largest and most used services is Depositphotos, a giant in the stock photography business with an enormous catalog of photos. They have launched a very helpful addition to the designer workflow, the Depositphotos Extension for Photoshop, which will also integrate with Illustrator and InDesign.

The workflow in the past has been to search the website for your needed imagery, download the images to some directory on your computer, then import those into Photoshop to integrate them with your project. Not a huge issue really, but for professionals (or anyone, really) who are doing this day in and day out, this is something that could be improved upon to save time and reduce tedium. That is exactly what this fanstastic extension does; takes the separate processes of hunting down the right image for your design and actually integrating them into your file and brings them together.

Now within Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign, this extension will give you a panel that allows you connect to your Depositphotos account and perform all of these actions without ever leaving your project. You can buy the images you need right inside the extension panel and access all of your purchased files, but one of the coolest and most useful features is the ability to simply drag image previews from the panel onto your design to quickly test out different photos to see what will work best. This is a HUGE time saver! Seriously, if you are one that performs these kind of tasks with any kind of regularity, you will quickly consider this an intergral part of your workflow and not even consider going back.

As you can tell, I think this a great product that really serves a functional need. Anything that can improve upon a process and make our lives easier and save time for a task that we arleady need to perform is a no-brainer in my book.

The extension is free, so head on over to the Depositphotos Extension page and give it a try. Also, a quick bonus! Readers of Photoshopgirl.com can use a promo code for 30 days (until Feb. 27th, 2014) to get 15% off of any stock photography purchases from Despositphotos: PROMO CODE: CS7581155

Here are few screenshots of the extension in action, enjoy!