Three years ago, Adobe built a stock photo service into Creative Suite 2. The service was part of Creative Suite 3, as well. The idea seemed good: People who use Adobe applications often work with photos, so perhaps they'd welcome a way to browse and buy photos from within those apps.

Apparently not.

March 3, 2008, is the last day you can use the service to search for an image and download comps. March 31, 2008, is the last day to purchase images. June 1, 2008, is the last day for stock photo customer service.

If you've already bought images from the service, don't panic. You have until March 31, 2008, to view your order history; just go to the Adobe Stock Photos screen and select the Your Account icon, then choose View Order History. You also have until March 31, 2008, to re-download images you've already bought. And the license agreements for royalty-free images will continue to be valid.

But what if it's August and you realize that the comp you downloaded in January is perfect for a new job? You'll have to first find the Adobe Stock Photos image ID (it's in the original file name and stays in the image metadata even if you change the file name). Then enter that number into the online Adobe Stock Photos converter, which will tell you the name of and contact information for the company that originally provided the image to Adobe. Then you can buy the image from that company.

If loose ends bug you, you may want to remove the stock photo service by running the uninstaller. You can download uninstallers for Macintosh and Windows.