Adobe Inc. introduced a raft of new artificial intelligence features for creative professionals at its Adobe Max product today.

Some of the capabilities are rolling out to the company’s video editing applications. The others will mostly become available in Adobe’s suite of image editing tools, including Photoshop.

AI-supported video editing 

Adobe is upgrading its Premiere Pro video editing application with a generative AI model called the Firefly Video Model. It powers a new feature called Generative Extend that can extend a clip by two seconds at beginning or end. Additionally, it’s capable of extending sound effects by up to 10 seconds. 

According to Adobe, making slight edits to a video is another use case that the feature supports. Generative Extend can, for example, remove an unwanted camera movement that interrupts the flow of a clip. The feature generates video content with 720p or 1080p resolution at a rate of 24 frames per second.

Adobe’s Firefly cloud service, which provides access to AI-based design tools, is also receiving new video editing capabilities. One of the additions is a feature that generates five-second clips based on text prompts. It’s joined by a similar capability, Image-to-Video, that allows users to describe the clip they wish to generate using not only a prompt but also a reference image. 

Faster image editing

The first image editing application that Adobe is enhancing as part of today’s update is Illustrator. It shares certain features with Photoshop but has a significantly narrower focus. Creative professionals use Illustrator to design visual assets such as logos and infographics. 

The first new feature in Illustrator, Objects on Path, makes it easier to move objects to specific locations within an image. That task can involve a significant amount of work in some cases, such as when a designer wishes to place a large number of objects at exactly the same distance from one another. The new feature reduces the process to a few clicks.

Objects on Path is rolling out alongside an enhanced version of Image Trace. That’s an existing Illustrator feature for creating scalable vector, or easily resizable, versions of an image. According to Adobe, its engineers have enhanced the visual fidelity of the feature’s output. 

Photoshop, the company’s flagship image editing application, is being updated as well. The most significant addition is an AI-powered feature called Distraction Removal.

When the feature is active, the underlying AI model automatically finds a list of objects that the user may wish to remove from an image. Distraction Removal might, for example, highlight overhead wires in a photo of an office building. Users can remove highlighted objects with one click. 

Before designers can edit a section of an image, they have to select it in the Photoshop interface. The application is receiving a feature that speeds up the task by automatically selecting all the objects in an image. That removes the need for designers to manually draw a line around each item they wish to edit. 

Users can modify selected objects using a number of existing generative AI features in Photoshop. One capability generates visual assets similar to the one highlighted by a designer. The others can embed new objects into an image, modify the background and perform related tasks. 

Adobe is upgrading those existing capabilities to a new AI model called the Firefly Image 3 Model. According to the company, the update will improve both the quality and variety of the content that the features generates. While at it, Adobe is also adding a tool called Generative Workspace that allows users to generate a large number of images at once with text prompts. 

Further down the line, both Photoshop and Illustrator will integrate with another generative AI tool called Project Concept. Adobe says that the upcoming tool will enable designers to automatically apply the style of one image to another. 

The Photoshop and Illustrator enhancements are joined by a new version of the company’s InDesign tool. Designers mainly use it to create visual assets such as brochures that contain a significant amount of text. As part of today’s update, the application is receiving a kind of visual autocomplete tool called Generative Expand that can make an image larger by filling the empty space around it with new content.

Image: Adobe