Adobe MAX 2023 highlights future with Firefly, Generative AI

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Adobe MAX, the world’s largest creativity conference, kicked off on October 12th 2023 with a 3-day-long live broadcast to creators across the world. In the spotlight on the center stage this year is the company’s AI innovations which, from our own experience, really does promise a new era of Creativity for All.

At the press conference, Adobe unveiled three new models for their Firefly generative AI:

Firefly Image 2 Model – Generates higher quality images, with more accurate human renders
Firefly Vector Model – World’s first generative AI model to focused on producing vector graphics for packaging, icons, and more
Firefly Design Model – Instantly generates template designs for flyers, posters and more

While these new models generate more improved results compared to the previous model, what makes it exciting for content creators and marketers is that these results are completely safe for commercial use – all from just typing a prompt.

Adobe Firefly Vector Model — Just type what you want and get a few results to choose from. Image from Adobe.

Results are also much more lifelike with the new Model (Right). Image from Adobe.

While Adobe has already taken measures to avoid infringing on the work of creators – such as by training the model on their own stock images and public domain content – creators will be able to exclude their assets from being used as a style reference in Firefly’s Generative Match.

“Since the release of our first Firefly image model in March, we’ve been taken aback by the amazing response from the community, who has demonstrated how useful Firefly is to enhancing experimentation and design and speeding up workflows, without compromising creative control,” – David Wadhwani, President, Digital Media Business

Adobe releases over 100 AI features and updates to Creative Cloud applications

The other announcement that got us excited was the release of over 100 major AI features and updates across Creative Cloud applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and After Effects. We’ve actually used some of these in Photoshop Beta and…. let’s just say it saved us a lot of editing time:

Adobe Photoshop Generative AI Female Stonks — We made the female stonks model using Generative AI on Photoshop. Just had to add a wig.

And if your job ever involves fitting images into a certain size template, Generative Fill makes that job a whole lot easier. What was once a whole lot of content-aware stretching and filling is can now be done in 3 clicks, with much better results (at least compared to our noob PS skills).

Here’s a sample of a before and after photo from an event, and a video of how it was made:

Object removal and fill with Generative AI on Photoshop Beta — Note that we’re running this on Photoshop Beta, so generation times tend to vary.

Adobe notes that AI makes creativity more accessible to users of all skill levels, and we’ve noticed that our new writers now find photo editing less daunting while our video team has also benefited from automatic transcription in Premiere Pro, and the audio cleaning in Adobe Podcast.

Adding to that accessibility is browser based version of Photoshop, as well as the Adobe Express – an all-in-one mobile and browser-based app that can be used for design, photo editing, and video editing. Express now also includes AI capabilities such as Generative Fill and Text-to-Template, where you can generate templates for flyers or posters with just a description.

Unless you happen to be familiar with these products, this all might seem quite overwhelming. However, if you’re in (or planning to get into) the world of publishing, design, or TikTok; you’re likely also seeing the possibilities.

Adobe Max 2023 is over at the time of writing, but all the sessions are still available on the website, where you can catch inspiring keynotes and use cases from industry professionals such as Adam Devine, Oak Felder, Filipe Carvalho and Dana Tanamachi… all in your own time.