Adobe likes to spread its MAX creativity conference around, and the first stop on its 2024 global tour is London.
Adobe MAX London is on today and there’s a load of content streaming live from the event and some in-person sessions will be made available in a couple of days - details on the Adobe MAX London website. But for now let’s take a look at a couple of the announcements the company is making at the show.
There’s a new Photoshop (beta) for starters. Highlights include:
Reference Image helps creatives achieve the outputs they imagine, using user-selected images as generative inspiration.
Text to Image with Generate Image provides full text to image capabilities directly within Photoshop for the first time.
Generate Background replaces and creates backgrounds.
Generate Similar lets creators iterate with variations they select, to explore creation ideas more deeply with more precise control.
Enhance Detail fine-tunes images to improve sharpness and clarity.
There's also some non-AI innovation at work too...
Adjustment Brush enables users to easily apply non-destructive adjustments to specific portions of images.
Improved Font Browser delivers real-time access to Adobe’s over 25,000 fonts in the cloud – without leaving Photoshop – so users can find the perfect type for any project.
Adjustment Presets enables creators to effortlessly change the appearance of images with filters that apply effects in a single click and with the ability to create and save customized presets as well.
The AI features are powered by the also newly announced Adobe Firefly Image 3 Foundation Model. We talked about some of the features it includes when it first broke cover last month, but to recap and embellish:
Advancing creative control with Structure Reference and Style Reference: Firefly Image 3-powered Structure Reference and Style Reference capabilities deliver upgraded user control and visual quality. With Structure Reference, users can quickly generate new images that match the structure of a reference image, eliminating the trial and error of having to write the perfect prompt. Style Reference then delivers higher quality outputs, giving users more control and personalization over the styles they generate. When these capabilities are combined, users can reference both the structure and style of an image to quickly bring their ideas to life.
Improved photographic quality: Firefly Image 3 delivers new levels of photographic quality with better lighting, positioning and more variety. Significant improvements can be seen in people rendering (with detailed features and a variety of moods and expressions), complex structures and crowds.
Rich detail and prompt accuracy: Firefly Image 3 has a better understanding of text prompts and scenes, enabling image generations that accurately reflect long, complex prompts and include richer details. Text renderings are also improved, resulting in image generations with clear text displays. This makes ideation for assets like posters more efficient.
Broader range of styles for illustrations and icons: Firefly Image 3 makes significant improvements to illustrations in outputs enable the quick creation of icons, logos, raster images and line art.
“Adobe’s steady stream of generative AI innovations are inspiring demand across the creative community – from students to creative professionals and Fortune 500 companies,” said David Wadhwani, president, Digital Media Business at Adobe. “With the latest release of Photoshop, the new Firefly Image 3 Model and the recent launch of Express mobile apps, we’re bringing the power of AI to creators whenever and wherever they need it.”
Oh, and as an aside, Adobe now say that over 7bn images have been created using Firefly. Under a month ago that figure stood at a 'mere' 6.5bn.