Adobe unveils new image generation tools in AI push

Adobe said on Tuesday that it is introducing new image generation technology that can take inspiration from an uploaded photo and match its style, to counter startups challenging its core business. In the latest pressure.

Imaging technology from firms like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion has threatened Adobe’s customer base of creative professionals who use its tools like Photoshop.

The San Jose, California-based company has responded by aggressively developing its own version of the technology and injecting it into its software programs.

Adobe, which has promised its users that the images it creates will be protected from legal challenges, said those users have used the tools to create three billion images, one billion of them in the past alone. in the month.

The new generation of tools announced Tuesday will include a feature called “generative match.” Like Adobe’s first tool, it will allow users to create an image from a few words of text. But it will also allow users to upload at least 10 to 20 images to use as the basis for the generated images.

Eli Greenfield, Adobe’s chief technology officer for digital media, said the company’s goal is to let big brands upload a handful of images of a product or character, and then use generative technology to automatically generate hundreds or thousands of images for different needs. Like creating for websites, social media. Campaigns and print ads.

“Until a few months ago, getting all these images was still a very manual process — not just taking the images, but then processing them,” Greenfield told Reuters.

“Some amount of photography is going to go to virtual photography, where you’re creating from whole cloth. But a lot of it is going to be, you do some amount of traditional photography or traditional creative work, and then You’re a bunch of adaptations using this creative technology.”

On Tuesday, Adobe also introduced tools that create vector graphics, which can be easily resized and are commonly used to create templates for logos and product labels, as well as brochures and other items. There are.

Greenfield said prices would not change from the increase previously announced in September.