BELLEVUE - Corbis, Bill Gates' digital image archive company, today announced that it is more aggressively targeting mainstream consumers of digital stock photography.

Corbis has purchased Digital Stock, a leading California-based provider of royalty-free images stored on compact disc or transferred over the Internet. Digital Stock competes with Seattle-based PhotoDisc, among others, in providing graphic artists, designers and others with photos and other images.

Details of the deal were not disclosed, as both Corbis and Digital Stock are privately owned. Digital Stock, with roughly 40 employees, will continue to operate from its Encinitas, Calif., facility as a division of Corbis.