Adobe

Adobe Max 2024: all the major announcements around design and AI

By Jess Weatherbed, a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.

Adobe usually makes plenty of big product launches and updates at its annual MAX event, and this year’s design conference is no exception. The creative software giant has announced its first generative AI video model, which is already available in Premiere Pro — beating rival offerings like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo to the market.

Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are getting some new features, and the Frame.io cloud collaboration platform has been overhauled with its biggest update since it was launched in 2015, according to Adobe.

We’re collecting all the biggest announcements below for you to follow along.

Oct 15
Jess Weatherbed
Adobe looks to a new era for generative AI.
After joking about “AI” being a drinking game trigger at MAX, Adobe’s chief product officer Scott Belsky said the company is moving away from the “prompt era” of the tech — which “cheapened and undermined the craft of creative professionals” by generating anything from text descriptions.
Instead, the new “control era” aims to improve creative workflows with AI in more specific ways within Creative Cloud apps.

Belsky says AI tools should help to remove frustrating labor-intensive tasks around content creation, and not produce a sloppy final product.
Image: The Verge / Jess Weatherbed
Oct 14
Adi Robertson
Generative AI is coming for the Barbie collectors.
If you like showing off dolls in their original packaging, you might soon be showcasing work from Adobe’s Firefly AI tools. Mattel and Adobe claim AI-generated (and human-refined) backdrops have “greatly shortened the time it takes to get toys into stores” by cutting out parts of the design process, and the results will hit stores soon.

Do you really need AI to make a picture of a basketball court?
Image: Mattel
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
You can now use Lightroom mobile like Google’s Magic Editor.
Adobe has added a bunch of new AI “quick actions” that automatically apply effects for retouching backgrounds, teeth, eyes, skin, and more.
Lightroom’s mobile apps also now have the “Generative Remove” feature that was introduced to the desktop editor in May — making it easier to delete annoying objects from your images on the go.

It's kinda like a semi-professional version of the popular Facetune app.
Image: Adobe
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
Adobe’s next AI Image generator update will make editing easier.
Teased during the demo for Project Concept, Adobe says V4 of its Firefly Image Model will allow users to highlight areas of a generated image to adjust without making it again from scratch— for example, adding a guitar to a specific surface.
V3 has only just rolled out to Creative Cloud apps but this latest update will be available soon according to Adobe.

Firefly Image V4 is already powering generative AI features in Adobe’s incoming Project Concept planning tool.
Image: The Verge / Jess Weatherbed
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
This Adobe project resembles one of Figma’s best features.
Dubbed “Project Concept,” this in-development planning app allows multiple creatives to hash out ideas in real time by mind-mapping inspirational images — just like Figma’s mood board tools.
Project Concept also includes a built-in generative AI “remix” feature that blends together aspects from multiple reference images. It’s not available yet, but Adobe says we’ll know more “in the near future.”

1/2
Judging by the live demo presented at Adobe Max, the mood board canvas in Project Canvas can be MASSIVE.
Image: The Verge / Jess Weatherbed
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
Frame.io’s camera-to-cloud integration is mind-blowingly fast.
Some audience pictures snapped by Adobe Principal Director Terry White at today’s Max event started appearing in Frame.io in real-time as he was taking them, without needing to connect the camera to a computer.
And because his account was synced with Lightroom, they appeared there too — meaning there’s basically no delay for photographers to get their snaps ready for editing.

The pictures were appearing on the big screen within 1-2 seconds.
Image: The Verge / Jess Weatherbed
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
‘BOOM, WHATUP HOMIES’
Adobe design evangelist Michael Fugoso was so excited to demo Project Neo — an Illustrator-like app for 3D design that was teased last year — that it felt like Bill and Ted had taken to the stage.
Project Neo is available as a free beta right now but we’ll hear more about general availability in the coming months.

‘We’re in a 3D space homies! Sick!’
Image: The Verge / Jess weatherbed
Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
Photoshop is getting a bunch of new AI tools
The updated Remove Tool in Photoshop can now find and remove common distractions for you.
Image: Adobe
Adobe is kicking off its annual Adobe Max conference today with the launch of new AI-powered features across its Creative Cloud apps. New AI features for Photoshop, like automatic background distraction removal and a more powerful Firefly generative AI model, are the biggest announcements, with Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro also getting new features that can help to speed up traditionally labor-intensive design tasks.
For example, a new “Distraction Removal” feature has been added to the Remove Tool. Remove already works a bit like Google’s Magic Eraser feature on Pixel phones, allowing users to quickly remove unwanted objects from their images by brushing over them. The new Distraction Removal feature, which Adobe teased last year, makes it even more like Magic Eraser by automatically identifying common distractions for you, like people, wires, and cables, and removing them with a single click.
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Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
Frame.io’s massive productivity update is now available for everyone
Frame.io V4 aims to make collaborating on large projects much easier by removing the need to jump between different apps.
Image:Adobe
The latest version of Frame.io, Adobe’s review and collaboration platform for Video and photography, is rolling today, making it easier to manage sprawling creative projects in a single app. Available for all users on web, iPhone, and iPad, Frame.io V4 is the biggest update to the platform since it was launched in 2015, according to Adobe, and adds new tagging and collaboration features that make it feel more like a workflow management tool, such as Trello and Asana.
It includes the “metadata” tagging model that was introduced in beta earlier this year, which allows users to assign custom tags like media type, assignee, due date, social media platform, and more to their files, making them easier to manage and review. Projects can also be broken down into new “Collections” folders that automatically update to reflect any changes or comments made to work, creating a smoother collaboration process for teams or multiple users.
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Oct 14
Jess Weatherbed
Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro
Adobe’s Firefly Video Model can generate a range of styles, including ‘realism’ (as pictured).
Image: Adobe
Adobe is making the jump into generative AI video. The company’s Firefly Video Model, which has been teased since earlier this year, is launching today across a handful of new tools, including some right inside Premiere Pro that will allow creatives to extend footage and generate video from still images and text prompts.
The first tool — Generative Extend — is launching in beta for Premiere Pro. It can be used to extend the end or beginning of footage that’s slightly too short, or make adjustments mid-shot, such as to correct shifting eye-lines or unexpected movement.
Read Article >

Photoshop is getting a bunch of new AI tools

Frame.io’s massive productivity update is now available for everyone

Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro