IndiGlobal Bureau
Photoshop is getting some new collaborative tools and AI capabilities to help remove some of the more tedious parts of image editing. The updates introduced on Tuesday at Adobe’s annual product conference symbolise the company’s efforts to streamline its offerings. These new features include improvements to automated object selections, content-aware fills, file-sharing collaboration, and content crediting to ensure proper attribution of work.
Adobe has responded with updates to its line of desktop creative tools and the introduction of a slimmed-down online Photoshop and Adobe Express, a web-based service that looks more like Canva than other Adobe products on the desktop. Browser-based products are crucial to Adobe’s efforts to pick up new customers, chief product officer Scott Belsky said in an interview.
Last month, Adobe announced it would buy Figma Inc to try to capture some of the small businesses, social media creators and non-professionals who have flocked to the upstart maker of web-based design tools.
Adobe has said the deal is expected to close sometime in 2023, subject to approvals. Still, Wall Street has panned the acquisition as too expensive. Adobe’s shares are down 22 per cent since the deal became public. One new feature, dubbed “share for review,” allows Photoshop, Lightroom, and InDesign files to be shared for feedback in a web browser rather than exporting large files or requiring reviewers to have the program installed. The workflow mirrors that of video-review platform Frame.io, which was acquired by Adobe last year for $1.3 billion.
The company will also add new artificial intelligence updates like the ability to remove objects from images with one click, detection of people, and background removal in Adobe Express. AI generated images have taken off this year thanks to providers like Open AI’s Dall- E, and Belsky said Adobe is focused on how to integrate this kind of AI into creative workflows, rather than just making “silly JPEGs from words.”
As manipulation of online content has become more common, creative artists have expressed worry about protecting their intellectual property. To address such concerns, Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative is partnering with camera manufacturers Nikon Corp and Leica Camera AG on technology that will attach a photographer’s credentials to a picture’s metadata, at the time of capture, through advanced coding. The picture retains its creator’s identity while being edited, published and shared on social media.