Technologies
Everything I Learned Testing Photoshop’s New Generative AI Tool
Adobe’s Firefly AI feature brings new fun and fakery to photos. It’s a huge change for image editing, though far from perfect.

Adobe is building generative AI abilities into its flagship image-editing software with a new Photoshop beta release Tuesday. The move promises to release a new torrent of creativity even as it gives us all a new reason to pause and wonder if that sensational, scary or inspirational photo you see on the internet is actually real.
In my tests, detailed below, I found the tool impressive but imperfect. Adding it directly to Photoshop is a big deal, letting creators experiment within the software tool they’re likely already using without excursions to Midjourney, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion or other outside generative AI tools.
With Adobe’s Firefly family of generative AI technologies arriving in Photoshop, you’ll be able to let the AI fill a selected part of the image with whatever it thinks most fitting – for example, replacing road cracks with smooth pavement. You can also specify the imagery you’d like with a text prompt, such as adding a double yellow line to the road.
Firefly in Photoshop also can also expand an image, adding new scenery beyond the frame based on what’s already in the frame or what you suggest with text. Want more sky and mountains in your landscape photo? A bigger crowd at the rock concert? Photoshop will oblige, without today’s difficulties of finding source material and splicing it in.
Photoshop’s Firefly, which is scheduled to emerge from beta testing in the second half of 2023, can be powerful. In Adobe’s live demo, the tool was often able to match a photo’s tones, blend in AI-generated imagery seamlessly, infer the geometric details of perspective even in reflections and extrapolate the position of the sun from shadows and sky haze.
Such technologies have been emerging over the last year as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-Ecaptured the imaginations of artists and creative pros. Now it’s built directly into the software they’re most likely to already be using, streamlining what can be a cumbersome editing process.
«It really puts the power and control of generative AI into the hands of the creator,» said Maria Yap, Adobe’s vice president of digital imaging. «You can just really have some fun. You can explore some ideas. You can ideate. You can create without ever necessarily getting into the deep tools of the product, very quickly.»
Now you’d better brace yourself for that future.
Photoshop’s Firefly AI imperfect but useful
In my testing, I frequently ran into problems, many of them likely stemming from the limited range of the training imagery. When I tried to insert a fish on a bicycle to an image, Firefly only added the bicycle. I couldn’t get Firefly to add a kraken to emerge from San Francisco Bay. A musk ox looked like a panda-moose hybrid.
Less fanciful material also presents problems. Text looks like an alien race’s script. Shadows, lighting, perspective and geometry weren’t always right.
People are hard, too. On close inspection, their faces were distorted in weird ways. Humans added into shots could be positioned too high in the frame or in otherwise unconvincingly blended in.
Still, Firefly is remarkable for what it can accomplish, particularly with landscape shots. I could add mountains, oceans, skies and hills to landscapes. A white delivery van in a night scene was appropriately yellowish to match the sodium vapor streetlights in the scene. If you don’t like the trio of results Firefly presents, you can click the «generate» button to get another batch.
Given the pace of AI developments, I expect Firefly in Photoshop will improve.
It’s hard and expensive to retrain big AI models, requiring a data center packed with expensive hardware to churn through data, sometimes taking weeks for the largest models. But Adobe plans relatively frequent updates to Firefly. «Expect [about] monthly updates for general improvements and retraining every few months in all likelihood,» Adobe product chief Scott Belsky tweeted Tuesday.
Automating image manipulation
For years, «Photoshop» hasn’t just referred to Adobe’s software. It’s also used as a verb signifying photo manipulations like slimming supermodels’ waists or hiding missile launch failures. AI tools automate not just fun and flights of fancy, but also fake images like an alleged explosion at the Pentagon or a convincingly real photo of the pope in a puffy jacket, to pick two recent examples.
With AI, expect editing techniques far more subtle than the extra smoke easily recognized as digitally added to photos of an Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006.
It’s a reflection of the double-edged sword that is generative AI. The technology is undeniably useful in many situations but also blurs the line between what is true and what is merely plausible.
For its part, Adobe tries to curtail problems. It doesn’t permit prompts to create images of many political figures and blocks you for «safety issues» if you try to create an image of black smoke in front of the White House. And its AI usage guidelines prohibit imagery involving violence, pornography and «misleading, fraudulent, or deceptive content that could lead to real-world harm,» among other categories. «We disable accounts that engage in behavior that is deceptive or harmful.»
Firefly also is designed to skip over styling prompts like that have provoked serious complaints from artists displeased to see their type of art reproduced by a data center. And it supports the Content Authenticity Initiative‘s content credentials technology that can be used to label an image as having been generated by AI.
Generative AI for photos
Adobe’s Firefly family of generative AI tools began with a website that turns a text prompt like «modern chair made up of old tires» into an image. It’s added a couple other options since, and Creative Cloud subscribers will also be able to try a lightweight version of the Photoshop interface on the Firefly site.
When OpenAI’s Dall-E brought that technology to anyone who signed up for it in 2022, it helped push generative artificial intelligence from a technological curiosity toward mainstream awareness. Now there’s plenty of worry along with the excitement as even AI creators fret about what the technology will bring now and in the more distant future.
Generative AI is a relatively new form of artificial intelligence technology. AI models can be trained to recognize patterns in vast amounts of data – in this case labeled images from Adobe’s stock art business and other licensed sources – and then to create new imagery based on that source data.
Generative AI has surged to mainstream awareness with language models used in tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, Google’s Gmail and Google Docs, and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. When it comes to generating images, Adobe employs an AI image generation technique called diffusion that’s also behind Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and Google’s Imagen.
Adobe calls Firefly for Photoshop a «co-pilot» technology, positioning it as a creative aid, not a replacement for humans. Yap acknowledges that some creators are nervous about being replaced by AI. Adobe prefers to see it as a technology that can amplify and speed up the creative process, spreading creative tools to a broader population.
«I think the democratization we’ve been going through, and having more creativity, is a positive thing for all of us,» Yap said. «This is the future of Photoshop.»
Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to create some personal finance explainers that are edited and fact-checked by our editors. For more, see this post.
Technologies
Why Are Switch 2 Games So Expensive? Trump’s Tariffs May Not Be Sole Factor
It still comes down to money.

Wednesday’s reveal of the Switch 2 had a lot of buzz from Nintendo surrounding its successor to the Switch. One shocking bit, though, was the high price of its games. There’s a lot of confusion, especially with news of President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on many trading partners, including Japan.
After the Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo released the full details of the upcoming console and games on its website. The price of Mario Kart World shocked gamers and led to some disdain, as the $80 MSRP was $10 more than what most new games cost today. This led many to wonder if this would be a new normal for game prices due to Trump’s tariffs or if Nintendo was just being greedy. The answer, however, might be something completely different.
Are Nintendo Switch 2 game prices hiking?
To start, some details need to be cleared up. Some people have posted on social media that the price of Nintendo’s Switch 2 games, at least in the US, will be $90. That is incorrect, as of right now.
One X user posted Switch 2 EU prices for Mario Kart World, which start at 80 euros for a digital version and 90 euros for the physical copy. Typically, US and EU games match in price, which caused some to assume that this pricing would be the case for the US.
Nintendo Switch 2 games will be more expensive physically than digitally.
Mario Kart World will be 90 freaking euros phisically. pic.twitter.com/iXuRwzlFqH— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) April 2, 2025
US retailers, however, already posted their Switch 2 game prices, and Nintendo-published games are listed at $80.
Will Trump’s tariffs cause the Switch 2 to cost more?
As for Trump’s tariffs, that is unlikely to be a driver of this price bump. Tariffs are not applied to digital goods, and when the prices were published, there were no tariffs on Japan. Plus, games are similarly expensive in other countries like Canada and the UK.
With that cleared up, why are Nintendo games on the Switch 2 so expensive? One likely reason is game storage.
Read More: All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free
The Switch 2 uses what Nintendo calls game-key cards, which are Switch 2 cartridges that don’t have all the game data on the cartridge itself. This helps save on production costs as storage is expensive. The original Switch cartridges went up to 32GB of storage, which doesn’t seem like a lot these days, with some games taking up 100GB or more of storage, but this is for the original Switch. Only a few games, like The Witcher 3, went above 32GB because the graphics for the Switch weren’t on the high end like with a PC, PS5 or Xbox Series console, where a Witcher 3 install size starts at 50GB.
Switch 2 games are going to be bigger in size — there is little doubt about it. CD Projekt Red confirmed it would put its Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on one 64GB cartridge, and there will likely be other games to surpass that 64GB. With the max size of the cartridge doubling in size, it adds to the price of the physical card, as not only does storage have to be bigger, but they will need to transfer data faster. That can get more expensive for physical copies, unlike optical discs, which are still the same price whether it has 20GB or 100GB on the disc.
What does all this mean for gamers?
This leads to a dilemma for publishers: Put the entire game on the physical card and sell it at a loss, increase the price of the physical copy with the full game on it or use the game-key card to have a card with minimal storage, requiring gamers to download the entire game.
Read More: The 17 Best Nintendo Switch Games Right Now
It appears that Nintendo went with door No. 2. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, knowing the company. Anyone who wants to save money on games knows that Nintendo will seldom bring the price down of its own games. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for example, is 8 years old and is still full price on Nintendo’s website.
According to an industry analysis from Niko Partners, this new pricing could become the new normal in a couple of years when it comes to physical cartridges.
«While there has been some sticker shock regarding the price of games increasing from $60 to $70 or $80, these price points are set to become industry standard over the next two years, especially so for Nintendo first-party games,» Niko Partners said in a statement Wednesday. «One reason for the higher price is the increased cost of the new and faster Game Cards themselves, with higher capacities being more expensive to manufacture than a PS5 Blu-ray disc.»
Nintendo didn’t respond to a request for comment about the higher price of its games.
That said, this doesn’t explain the lower price of Donkey Kong Bananza, which comes out in July; that’s listed on Nintendo’s site for $70. This could mean the game isn’t using a larger storage card, but that can’t be said for sure until the game comes out. It’s unclear how things will change in the future.
Technologies
Nintendo Switch 2 Pre-orders in US Delayed Due to Trump’s Tariffs
The Switch 2 launch is still happening on June 5, and preorders outside the US seem unchanged.

Nintendo Switch 2 preorders in the US were to start April 9, but it appears those plans have changed due to the new tariffs imposed this week by President Donald Trump. It’s unclear if this means Nintendo will also have to increase the price of the Switch successor, which currently starts at $450.
Nintendo said Friday that it’s delaying Switch 2 preorders in the US, but its June release date is unaffected.
«Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,» the company said in a statement. «Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.»
Nintendo didn’t indicate if preorder dates outside the US would change, but Eurogamer reports that preorders are live at various retailers in the UK.
A tariff of 24% has been applied by the US to goods from Japan. Were that rate to be applied directly to the Switch 2’s announced price, it would rise to $558, but it would be up to Nintendo how much of the tariff it will pass on to consumers.
This is a developing story.
Technologies
Twelve South’s Foldable Wireless Charger for iPhone and Apple Watch Is Up to 27% Off at Amazon
This handy accessory makes it easier to travel with your Apple gear and stay charged wherever you go.

Whether you’re traveling for business or off on a wonderful family vacation, charging your stuff shouldn’t be something you have to worry about. Taking extra chargers and cables can be a pain, and they all take up space in your bag. But the handy Twelve South Butterfly SE charger is a compact alternative that can wirelessly charge an iPhone and an Apple Watch at the same time. And it’s available with up to 27% off right now at Amazon.
That top line discount applies to the pink version, though the white model is only $7 more and other colors are seeing 15% off the usual $100 price tag if you have a strong preference. It’s not clear how long the discounts will last, though.
Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.
The charger itself offers a way to wirelessly charge a iPhone and Apple Watch from a single AC outlet, and you can even charge your AirPods when your phone is done, too. And because this is a Qi2 charger you’ll get a full 15 watts of wireless charging for compatible devices — including the best iPhones.
When you’re not using the Butterfly SE, it folds up so it can be slid into a pocket, bag or luggage without taking up too much space. It really is the perfect partner for people who like to travel light.
Unfortunately, this charger doesn’t come with an AC adapter in the box, so you’ll need to provide your own. Make sure it’s rated for 20 watts or more. If you need to buy one, Apple’s 20-watt USB-C charger is just $15 right now.
Why this deal matters
We all carry multiple devices around with us these days. Anything that can make charging them more convenient is a win in our books, especially when you’re traveling. This charger takes up little space when it isn’t being used and charges quickly when it is.
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