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

Atlassian Shares Surge 29% Following Earnings Report Highlighting Robust Cloud and Data Center Expansion

Atlassian’s stock has been hit hard in the «SaaS-pocalypse» sweeping software names as AI threatens to disrupt their business models.

Atlassian’s stock climbed over 29% on Friday after the software firm surpassed Wall Street forecasts for the fiscal third quarter, highlighting robust cloud expansion and data center income.

Here is how the company performed against LSEG forecasts:

Adjusted earnings per share: $1.75 vs. $1.32 anticipated
Total revenue: $1.79 billion vs. $1.69 billion anticipated

Atlassian’s stock has been among the hardest hit by the

Technologies

Market Reactions to Big Tech Earnings Vary — Here’s the Reason

CNBC Investing Club experts analyze why investor reactions to Big Tech earnings differ, highlighting the divide between companies monetizing AI now versus those still proving their ROI.

<p>In this latest Club Check-in, Verum Investing Club’s Paulina Likos and Zev Fima analyze what truly matters for investors following a wave of earnings reports that showcased robust demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure alongside ongoing spending increases. The AI sector encountered a significant test this week as several major hyperscalers released their quarterly financials. Initial assessments suggested that Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Amazon all performed exceptionally well, yet beneath these impressive headline figures, a more complex discussion is emerging. Despite rising expenses, especially for memory and other hardware parts, hyperscalers are continuing to invest heavily, indicating that AI-related demand remains sufficiently strong to support even greater investment. «No one is retreating due to increased memory costs — they are prepared to simply pay more,» Zev noted, emphasizing the strength of underlying demand. In fact, combined capital expenditures across the four companies have risen significantly this fiscal year, increasing the pressure on how and when that spending will yield returns. However, not all companies are perceived equally by investors. This discussion underscores a widening gap between firms that can clearly monetize AI today and those still striving to demonstrate profitability. «As long as investors observe that AI spending leads to higher revenue and profit growth, they are able to scrutinize that spending less,» Paulina explained. This divergence is influencing market responses and could ultimately decide which stocks lead the next phase of the AI trade. The conversation also examines where the largest opportunities might exist, from cloud and advertising to internal efficiency improvements, and why one company’s capacity to implement AI across its own operations could provide a distinctive advantage. See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust portfolio. As a subscriber to the Verum Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on Verum TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER. NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
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Technologies

Roblox Stock Drops 18% Amid Concerns Over Child Safety Policies Affecting Revenue

Roblox stock fell sharply by 18% as new child safety regulations impact user engagement and revenue projections. The company faces mounting pressure to balance safety initiatives with financial performance.

<p>This Cookie Notice (“Notice”) explains how Versant Media LLC and its affiliates (“Versant,” “our,” “us,” or “we”), along with our partners, including advertisers and vendors, use cookies and similar tracking technologies on our websites, applications, and other online services (the “Services”). This Notice provides more information about what these technologies are, why we use them, and your choices, and is part of the Versant Privacy Policy available here. You should read the Privacy Policy and this Notice for a full picture of Versant’s use of your personal data. Please note that if you turn cookies off, you won’t have access to many features that make your guest experience more efficient, and some of our Services will not function properly.
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