Photoshop Update Brings Generative AI and Adjustment Brushes Out of Beta

Adobe has released a new Photoshop update, adding new selection and adjustment brushes, leveling up Firefly’s text-to-image from beta to public release, and improving Photoshop’s type tool.

Selection Brush Tool

First up is the new “selection brush tool,” which lets users easily select an area in their image just by brushing over it. With this new tool, users can easily create selections with various opacities and different edge feathering, which Adobe says delivers a “more seamless and nuanced effect,” ideal for compositing and when applying filters or fills to an image.

This tool also means users don’t need to get into the separate quick mask mode, which can be tricky for novice users to find and understand, given that it has its own dialog box and requires multiple steps.

Adjustment Brush Tool

Aimed a bit more at photographers, the new adjustment brush tool has exited beta after being unveiled earlier this year, and is available to all Photoshop users.

This feature lets photographers paint adjustments to their image, including tweaks to brightness, saturation, exposure, and more.

Adobe Firefly Text-to-Image Leaves Beta, Gets Rebranded as ‘Generate Image’

Text-to-image has been inside Photoshop for a while now as a beta feature, but it’s finally available as a complete, public tool. With a fresh name, “Generate Image,” users can type a specific prompt and get AI-generated images in seconds.

Generate Image is built on the latest Adobe Firefly Image 3 Model and promises fast, improved results that are commercially safe.

Photoshop users can also generate images with an uploaded reference image, and additional controls exist in the form of content type (photo or art) and style effects (movements, themes, techniques, effects, material, and concepts).

Adobe’s Approach to AI

With the full-blown release of generative text-to-image AI in Photoshop, Adobe has also redoubled its efforts to be clear about its views concerning AI. While Firefly text-to-image has been in Photoshop since last year in one form or another, there is something substantially different about it being out of beta — ready to do real, commercial work (and presumably cost generative credits).

“As shared previously, Firefly is designed to be commercially safe with a creator-first approach to generative AI and only trains on licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired,” Adobe promises. “To maintain transparency in AI usage within Adobe’s applications, Firefly-powered features in Photoshop automatically attach Content Credentials to images with generated content.”

Type Tool, Better Task Bar, and Generative Fill Improvements

Rounding out the Photoshop updates are improvements to some other Photoshop features and functions. Starting with the type tool, it now supports bullets and numbering.

The app’s contextual task bar is better now, providing quicker access to popular settings for working with shapes and transforming objects.

Generative Fill, a tool photographers can use to expand an image, now has an “enhance detail” option, which promises to generate results with greater sharpness and detail.

Availability

The new Adobe Photoshop update is available now on the desktop app and through Photoshop on the web.

Image credits: Adobe