Adobe to incorporate AI-powered image generator in Photoshop

In a bid to dramatically accelerate the user’s experience of editing pictures, software giant Adobe said Tuesday that it is making artificial intelligence (AI) image generator into its Photoshop by the end of this year, though it is already available in the beta versions.

The AI tool called Firefly would allow users to add or delete elements from images with just a text prompt. The company said it can also match the existing images' lighting and style automatically.

Pam Clark, vice president of Photoshop product management and product strategy, wrote in a blog post: “[N]ow that we are entering a new era of AI, the advent of generative models presents a new opportunity to take our imaging capabilities to another level.”

“Over the last few months, we have integrated this exciting new technology into Photoshop in a major step toward a more natural, intuitive, and fun way to work,” Pam said.

The AI-powered tool was announced in March but it was only available for the web which was trained on Adobe’s own collection of stock images, as well as publicly available assets.

Adobe regarded the tool as one of its most successful beta launches ever, with more than 70m images created in the first month.

Adobe may be able to avert the criticism that some other AI image generators have faced for using a large amount of online content for training its software. For this reason, Adobe is relying on its image library and the media, available for general public use.

Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Stability AI in January — a company which uses the AI art tool stable diffusion — accusing the company of copyright infringement.

Getty Images maintained that Stability AI copied and processed millions of its images without obtaining the proper licensing.

A motion was submitted by Stability AI earlier this month to dismiss the suit.