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Posted on 07/11/25 08:15:28 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7075 Reply  |
Generative fill and more in Photoshop 2026
This year's major upgrade to Photoshop now incorporates "partner models" for AI integration, including Google Gemini 2.5 (aka Nanobanana). Check out my feature for CreativePro here to read about this extraordinary new tool. Perhaps even more extraordinary is the new Harmonize tool. You can read about that here. And if you're interested in my thoughts on AI in general, check out my CreativePro feature here. |
Posted on 09/11/25 2:36:59 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5893 Reply  |
Re: Generative fill and more in Photoshop 2026
I played a lot with the new options in the beta. Gemini, in particular, can be totally mind boggling. My general attitude has not really changed much. I am very happy to use AI to wash up, maybe even to slice and dice the ingredients, but I don't want it as my chef! The same goes for Photoshop. I am delighted to profit from its skills at selection, colour matching, object removal etc., but I don't really want it to create for me. The problem, if you can call it that, is, of course, me, not the tool. Once a few professionals use these tools the others must follow as pressures of time and budget will force them to seek the same quick fix solutions as their competitors. If enough people settle for 'good enough' which inevitably will be the case in vast sectors of the market then auto generated mediocrity will become the accepted norm. Anyone who can write an articulate prompt will be able to become the image creator. Artists and photographers will become superfluous. As you point out, Steve, there are situations where AI's limitation of drawing on samples can mean it ends up with things outside its experience leaving human imagination and creativity the space to do better. But that will change as the knowledge base expands and, as we have already seen, that change will be exponential. My own lack of enthusiasm lies less in my bleak vision of machine creativity taking over so much as an unwillingness to let it rob me of something that gives me a sense of personal achievement. I don't have to meet deadlines. I Photoshop for pleasure. So yes, I am very reluctant to let something through my door that could rob me of that. When I see, for example, a cinematographer produce something far better than I could, it inspires me. When I see a machine do that it intimidates me. Where is the next generation of creators going to seek inspiration? So back to Photoshop. I have no right to criticise what I have not tried and researched - even if only a little. So I dived into Gemini image creation from scratch. Using these new tools is not easy. I played a lot and got all sorts of wonderful polished results that weren't really what I was after at all. So I read and watched some tutorials on prompt writing and discovered that there are some very important basic rules and techniques that are essential. I started to have much more success. I was able to start shaping things the way I wanted. But no matter how good I got at bending Gemini to my will I couldn't break that smooth facile polished empty look and in particular I couldn't really get my characters to express emotions more convincingly than the mannered looks and gestures of silent movie. When I look at AI generated images and footage on the web it is this undefinable 'emptiness' that always gives it away. So I've had my play and found it, in purely personal terms, unrewarding. I'll not be using it except as a tool for grunt work. Whatever my limitations, whatever the shortcomings of my own work, it is mine and therein lies the pleasure. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 09/11/25 2:52:22 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5893 Reply |
Re: Generative fill and more in Photoshop 2026
I've just realised, Steve, reading this again that it looks as if I am taking a bash at you. That is absolutely not my intention. All of your articles you linked to here are informed, open, and dispassionate. If I appear unsympathetic, it is the subject not the writer! _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |