Recently, Adobe presented a new tool for Photoshop, based on artificial intelligence. The tool can not only significantly facilitate the work of designers in the future, but can also ease the troubles to all those who use their software for image creation and processing. The new tool will be integrated in the new version of Photoshop. It works quite similarly to DALL-E or Midjourney. The use is simple and similar to all accessible image generators, we even dare say it’s way too simple… the user enters text, and artificial intelligence generates an image or parts of an image according to the previously given written instructions.
Macedonian designer Daniel Janev had the opportunity to test the new technology on Adobe. He was willing enough to share the results on his LinkedIn and Twitter profile. In just a few minutes, with the help of the new functionality, the tool completely changed the image of the Church of St. John at Kaneo and turned Ohrid into a Scandinavian town.
Daniel is perhaps best known as the creator of Type of Skopje or Dezen.mk. He has been working as a designer for more than 10 years, and we asked just had to ask him a few questions about his experience with the new functionality of Photoshop and artificial intelligence…
As a designer, what’s your take on the new Photoshop functionality?
Quite positive. This feels like just the beginning, a logical step after all the AI utilized for design, especially after Adobe Firefly, with a strong emphasis on the incorporation with a good UI into the Adobe system itself. It all starts with Photoshop, being the most famous tool and all, but I think there will be more interesting functionalities in Illustrator, 3D and video.
It is interesting that work habits and the flow are slowly changing, so if, for example, you want to set paste clouds in the sky, you no longer need to look for photos online, then cut the said photos, then edit them into the picture; now it will be more important to know how to issue good prompts and give adequate directions. In any case, it improves creativity because it opens up new ways of thinking for designers (and in the near future, for everyone) and to realize their ideas easily and quickly.
How satisfied are you with the quality of life that AI brought to the table?
To some extent, everything that is in the beta phase of testing will not be up to par with the intended final version, and bugs are to be expected. It’s good that as we learn as much as possible how to achieve good results, Adobe also learns from us. It can only be better, not worse. I expect that the quality of AI will be at a much higher level in the 2024 versions of all Adobe products.
What would be a downside of AI implementation in design?
This is definitely a broad topic and one that’s not easily answerable. Honestly, I don’t have a strong opinion, from what I read every day, there are valid arguments for and against. We are at the very beginning, it’s more likely that we would need more time to see the bigger picture. If I have to single out some drawback, it would have to be in relation to copyright, inconsistency in the results, frequent errors and repetitions, not able to fully control the results, exploiting market and so on… but the positives nevertheless outweigh the negatives. My final advice would be for all designers, both new and veterans, to try out AI techniques and tools at work and draw their own conclusions.
The new Photoshop tool is part of the Firefly-based functionality and is currently available only in the beta version of Photoshop and for just for a handful of Firefly beta users on the web.
