Adobe Firefly: All About Adobe’s New Family of AI Media Generators

Update: In 2023, Adobe Firefly was integrated into Photoshop and Adobe Express desktop, and in March 2024, included in the new Adobe Express mobile app.
Adobe Logo > Adobe Firefly: All About Adobe's New Family of AI Media Generators

At last! Adobe finally launched today the beta for Adobe Firefly, a set of AI-generative apps to create visual content with AI.

While launched as a stand-alone web page, Firefly will be eventually integrated into the Adobe ecosystem: Creative Cloud and its most popular apps, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro. 

How to get Adobe Firefly:

-Go to the official web page, firefly.adobe.com

-Click on the AI tool you want to try (text to image, generative fill, text effects, generative recolor)

-Enter your text prompt in the designated field and/or upload your image to start editing

How much is adobe firefly
Adobe Firefly is free to test and use! Just keep in mind you need an Adobe ID login –which you also get for free- to download your generated assets.

Currently, it only has one text-to-image generative model that can create pictures and stylized text. But more models are coming to the Firefly suite in the future.

This new AI image generator profiles itself as transparent and legally sound, as it's only trained with out-of-copyright or approved content from Adobe Stock. It also counts with an opt-out system for artists to exclude their work from Firefly's training datasets.

Update: Firefly's integrations started rolling out in May 2023. Generative Fill is a Firefly-powered feature within Photoshop and Adobe Express, and Generative Recolor is Firefly tech in Illustrator, for example.

Read on for more details!

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Adobe Firefly: A Family of AI Media Generators by Adobe

Announced today, the new Adobe Firefly progresses from the AI tools introduced into Adobe Express and Photoshop during 2022’s Adobe Max conference. But it promises to be far more powerful and deeply integrated into the Adobe ecosystem. 

Adobe Firefly is a family of generative AI models developed by Adobe, currently focused on image and text effect generation. The AI features will be available both on the Adobe Firefly stand-alone web page and as integrations across Adobe's ecosystem, including Creative Cloud –primarily Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro– but also Document Cloud later on.

Today, Firefly offers a text-to-image generating tool that can create images and stylized text with visual effects (some called a “modern WordArt”) and perform AI image editing by applying a certain style to existing images, all from a written instruction entered by the user. Images created with Firefly are for commercial use, and from the samples we've seen, they look very high-quality.

They announced that Firefly will be a “family of AI generative models” that will include apps to generate 3D models, create vector-format variations of user sketches, and automatically apply a certain image style to entire videos, among other features.

While at this time, Firefly is available on its own web page only, the idea is to integrate all the models in all Adobe platforms: Adobe Express, Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, and Experience Cloud.

Here you can check Creative Cloud pricing to know how much it'll cost you to enjoy Firefly integrations, and if you are a wise buyer, you won't want to miss our list of Adobe discounts!

Adobe Firefly mosaic > Adobe Firefly: All About Adobe's New Family of AI Media Generators

A User-Friendlier Tool for AI Image Generation

While in functionality, Firefly is not much different from other popular tools like Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, or Midjourney, Adobe has put a stronger focus on offering optimal results from minimal user input, something the former apps do not excel at.

Namely, Firefly doesn't require complex text prompts in order to produce satisfactory images – but you can use detailed, custom prompts if you wish. Instead, it comes equipped with presets for things like visual style, lighting, or aspect ratio, which helps you get the job done without having to write a lot of instructions. The preset features are also useful for Firefly’s other functionality, AI image editing: applying a certain style to existing images. 

It seems that Adobe, as Shutterstock did too with their Shutterstock Generate tool, identifies that the regular user wants to produce great AI-generated images without having to become an expert in text prompt writing.

Adobe Firefly sample > Adobe Firefly: All About Adobe's New Family of AI Media Generators

Firefly is Transparent and Legally Safer

Another user (and artist) need they made efforts to cover is ethical management and legal safety of the AI-generated content. And they did so through three main decisions:

  • All Firefly models have been trained only with out-of-copyright content and licensable content from Adobe Stock, which they have the authorization to use. That should keep them safe from the lawsuits that Stable Diffusion and Midjourney are facing due to how they trained their software.
  • They excluded non-Adobe Stock artists’ work and any trademarked brands’ data from Firefly datasets. Meaning the apps are unable to accidentally replicate someone else's work or infringe their trademarks. 
  • They are defining a way to reward Adobe Stock contributors for using their work in Firefly training, which aims at a fairer treatment of the artists whose work is the backbone of AI-generative tools.
  • As part of their Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), they will establish a Do Not Train metadata tag for artists to exclude their work from AI-training datasets expressly. They expect other developers and models to accept this tag as part of a new industry standard for ethical AI training.  

In a final note, Adobe communicated they can't guarantee whether Firefly-generated content would be copyrightable after the latest guidance on the copyright of AI-generated media by the USCO. But they believe their models give users enough creative control for copyright to be a possibility. 

Adobe Firefly: They Laughed Last, Will They Laugh Longest?

Adobe took its sweet time coming out with its native AI generative models, and even now, they are releasing only one initial tool is under beta. That makes them one of the latest “big fishes” to come out to swim in the AI pond.

But they do seem to have really thought of and creatively solved the most pressing user and artist needs from the get-go, plus having solid plans for the future that look really promising. Clearly, being a decades-long leader in the creative software industry has its perks.

The initial results shared from Adobe Firefly are rather impressive, and if user-friendliness is as real as it seems, then it’ll be no doubt a valuable tool to add to their Creative Cloud suite. 

Are you signing up to try Adobe Firefly? Let us know how you find it!

Ivanna Attié
Ivanna Attié

I am Content Manager, Researcher, and Author in StockPhotoSecrets.com and Stock Photo Press and its many stock media-oriented publications. I am a passionate communicator with a love for visual imagery and an inexhaustible thirst for knowledge. Lucky enough to enter the wonderful world of stock photography working side-by-side with experienced experts, I am happy to share my research, insights, and advice about image licensing, stock photography offers, and the stock media industry with everyone in the creative community. My background is in Communication and Journalism, and I also love literature and performing arts.

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