Adobe reveals a slew of updates for its video and photo software

Today at Adobe's annual creativity conference MAX Miami, there were a number of big reveals and updates to the company's photo and video related software. 

We've captured some of the major updates below.

Adobe Firefly

One of the biggest reveals was Text-to-Video (beta) in Firefly where you can use text prompts to describe the content, camera movements, lighting, film grain and more and create fairly realistic 'footage'.

It can create 'photo realistic' or stylised animation. It's scary / interesting to think that maybe in the future someone could piece together hundreds of shots to create a whole movie without leaving their bedroom!

So instead of being a cinematographer, you'll have to add 'promptographer' to your resume - whoever has the best prompts wins.

You can use highly detailed long prompts (see image above) such as – Prompt: Cinematic closeup and detailed portrait of an elderly man in the middle of a street at night. the lighting is moody and dramatic.

The colour grade is blue shadows and orange highlights. the man has extremely realistic detailed skin texture and visible pores. movement is subtle and soft. the camera doesn't move. film grain. vintage anamorphic lens. 

Another addition to Premier via Firefly is the ability to add extra frames / extend the duration of a clip. So if you don't have enough footage in a clip, AI will just create it from the previous footage so that it matches seamlessly.

Additionally, if you have shot a clip badly, i.e. off-kilter with uneven panning, Firefly can somehow fix the footage so it looks more stable, even to the point of adding parts of a missing subject.

On top of all this, you can Object Select in video. So for example, you could select a dancer from a clip, lift from the background, then add a large text layer behind them. Bravo!

Photoshop v26.0 updates

Photoshop received a bunch of love, with the biggest improvement going to what Adobe calls 'Distraction Removal' with the new Remove Tool.

Do you have an architectural photo where there are ugly, unsightly telegraph wires? Or perhaps there is a gormless person in the background of your image picking their nose?

You can use the Distraction Removal within the Remove tool which automatically detects and deletes unwanted wires, cables, and people in the background who are obviously not the key subject.

Another big bonus is the new Generate Background feature which will be fantastic for product photography. If you have a  flat-lay product on a (boring) white paper roll background, you can use AI to rustle up a new coloured, textured backgrounds in seconds.

You can even prompt different props to appear in the background. So no need to hunt down, purchase and store all those clunky real world backgrounds and props – just create them with AI!

Other additions revealed are due to the improved Firefly Image Model 3. Generative Fill, Generative Expand, and Generate Similar all yield greatly improved photographic quality, have better prompt comprehension to understand complex descriptions, and have more generation variety to explore different results. 

Frame.io V4

If you use traditional methods such as email and Slack to correspond with clients and media collaborators on big or even small projects – it could be worth checking out Frame.io.

Instead of feedback information and additional ideas on projects being buried in emails or random text messages, Frame.io enables you to privately upload, review and share media with your entire team.

Frame.io used to be sold as a stand alone subscription model, but the latest version, Frame.io V4, is now available to every Creative Cloud customer.

Additionally, new Camera to Cloud partnerships and integrations with Canon, Leica, and Nikon cameras open cloud-native workflows to photographers and videographers worldwide.

So this means you can shoot on specific branded cameras (with more brands and cameras to be added) and then stream the images straight to a database which other team members can be doing the post production on.

This was available to a degree previously, but it's always been a bit of a pain.

The new Frame.io V4  looks to have made a far more streamlined, easy to set up system that will be a boon to event, news and sports photographers who need to have their work shared rapidly.

Lightroom and Frame.io V4 integration

Photographers can now automatically transfer all images uploaded via Frame.io’s Camera to Cloud into their Lightroom account. The service also allows for new workflows where photographers can make selects in Frame.io and push their best images into Lightroom for editing.

Editors can access the images no matter where they’re located, in real time, and once the images have been retouched or edited, they can upload them back into Frame.io for delivery or distribution.

There is no tethering required and no need to remove and then download from media cards.

But before you get too excited, Camera to Cloud is so far only available for these cameras: Canon C400 and C80, Nikon Z6iii, Z8, and Z9, Leica SL3.

It's a little confusing as video clips also have photographers using the Fujifilm GFX 100SII, though Fujifilm isn't mentioned on the list. So we can assume more cameras will be able to hook up C2C soon.

Lightroom (Mobile and web)

Instead of using the traditional granular level adjustment sliders, the new Quick Actions use AI to automatically suggest a bunch of different edits to an image.

In a way, it is similar to adding a filter or preset, but it utilises auto masking so that you may add background blur, or sky select with colour changes etc. 

Additionally, you can select the Retouch tool where you can make changes to hair, teeth and even clothing. 

Smart Albums is another interesting addition which can create folders with specific subjects. For example if you created a Smart Album for cars, it would search your existing images and add any images of cars to the album.

Also, if you were to import any images of cars in the future – they would continue to be added to that folder. Ingenious! 

Lightroom Classic v14.0

The latest update provides improvements to Generative Remove, denoise for more RAW file formats, ISO gain map support on export, Content Credentials, new camera and lens support, as well as bug fixes.

Content Credentials (Bridge and Lightroom)

Adobe should be applauded for (somewhat) taking the lead with what is known as Content Credentials – a new kind of tamper-evident metadata.

It allows creators to add extra information about themselves and their creative process directly to their content at export or download. This information allows creators to receive more recognition for their work, connect with others online, and enhance transparency for their audience.

It's like a more obvious metadata that can also be used to autheniticate the user, and if the content is authentic / real.

Content Credentials are part of a growing ecosystem of technologies available through the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI). Adobe, along with CAI members in media, creativity, and civil society, is dedicated to restoring trust online by creating a standard way to share digital content without losing key contextual details such as who made it and when and how it was created.

Alongside the CAI, Adobe co-founded a standards development organisation, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), to develop an open, global standard for sharing this information across platforms and websites (beyond just Adobe products). Content Credentials is an implementation of this standard.

Information overload

So all this keynote information was a lot to ingest, but the takeaway is that Adobe has double downed on AI in a big way since last year.

In a conversation with Lightroom's Senior Product Manager – Rob Christensen, we've also discovered that far more people use Lightroom Web and Mobile, so this is why they have brought a lot of polish to this product.

In fact, after using the new Mobile Lightroom, I've become a convert and it will become my default photo app over the inbuilt Apple 'Photos' app. 

Australian Photography will also be bringing you a more in depth interview with Rob Christensen at a later date. 

All-in-all, the Adobe Max Creative Conference is an impressive knowledge booster for so many photographers, videographers and content creators in general and we can recommend you perusing the Adobe Max website to view some online sessions, as well as having the ability to watch some of the recorded 'in person' sessions. 

You can watch the Keynote speech here.

Or check out the Adobe Max sessions here.