Adobe Unveils AI Updates to Photoshop, Illustrator, and More

Need to Know 

• Adobe has shared a slew of updates to its Creative Cloud suite of services during its Adobe MAX conference, including AI updates to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator.
• The iconic software brand has also updated its Cloud Documents service to help teams work better together.
• Through Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative, the company hopes to help creators get credit for the work and slow the spread of misinformation.

Analysis 

Adobe has released updates to its Creative Cloud suite of services, which include significant innovations in features for its most popular applications, like Photoshop and Illustrator. 

In an announcement at Adobe MAX, the creative software company’s annual conference, Adobe shared the groundbreaking new features to its flagship applications, as well as the new tools it will provide to help teams collaborate better, expand their skill sets, and even help prevent the spread of misinformation. 

Adobe’s iconic Photoshop application will now come with AI features. The new Sky Replacement tool means Photoshop can now automatically recognize the sky in a photo and replace it with a “sky” of your choosing. The Neural Filters tool is the new-and-improved generation of Photoshop filters, which will help improve portraits. Editors can now change where people are looking, change the angle of the light source, and change details like hair thickness or the intensity of a smile. And Photoshop’s “intelligent refine edge” tool has been improved to reduce a lot of manual work and save the photo editor’s sanity. 

The software brand’s popular Illustrator platform also received an upgrade, launching for the first time on iPad. The iPad version of Illustrator supports Apple Pencil, allowing for a more streamlined stylus-friendly approach to editing. The new update includes 18,000 fonts and new features like radial, grid, and mirror repeat and the desktop version lets users change entire color themes in one click using the Recolor Artwork feature. 

And photo editing software Lightroom also got an upgrade, now featuring a new Color Grading tool that will replace the existing “split toning” feature. The new upgrade also includes auto versioning that’s saved in the cloud, graphical watermarks, and AI technology to pick out your “best” photos. 

Other updates to the Adobe Creative Suite include an iPhone option for Fresco, AI-powered Speech to Text for the Premiere Pro app, and After Effects’ new AI-powered Roto Brush 2. 

The creative software giant has also expanded some other elements of its portfolio to allow teams to work together more effectively. These updates include an expanded Creative Cloud Library, an upgrade to Cloud Documents that allow for easy editing with file versions and Invite to Edit functionality. 

Adobe also announced an update to its Content Authenticity Initiative, which is “a program focused on combating deceptive content manipulation online.” Adobe unveiled a new attribution functionality which will help creators get credit for their work and slow the spread of misinformation.

Adobe’s updates come amidst a year of massive turmoil and change, both in the workforce and in the creative community, with “82% of creators saying that the events of 2020 have forever changed how they create.”