What you need to know
- Adobe Firefly is a powerful generative AI software that can create imagery, text effects, and more via text prompts.
- As of today, the Firefly beta is now integrated into Adobe Express for all to utilize. This is a program which is included in most Creative Cloud plans.
- Express is a creative software designed to be very easy for all skill levels and makes it possible to create anything from logos, TikToks, reels, flyers, and more.
Earlier this year, Adobe unveiled its generative AI software, Firefly, and has been slowly rolling it out to various programs within the Creative Cloud, including Adobe Express. Express is an intuitive all-in-one editor that makes it so people of any skill level can touch up images, create professional-looking banners, design social media posts, and even produce short videos with ease. As of today, the Firefly beta is now available to all Express users, which opens it up to a huge audience since Express is included in most Creative Cloud plans.
Integrated into Express, the addition of Firefly makes it far easier for users to generate custom images and text effects for their projects within just a few minutes or perform other quick edits. Express is a very popular tool with millions of global users, so the fact that Firefly's text prompts work in 100 languages is very important. Additionally, Adobe states that everything made in the program is "designed to be safe for commercial use," making it a very safe software for companies to utilize.
“With groundbreaking innovations and generative AI at the core of Express, we’re empowering an ever-expanding user base with an AI-first, all-in-one tool that makes content creation fast, easy and fun,” said Govind Balakrishnan, senior vice president, Adobe Express and Digital Media Services at Adobe. “The all-new Express is revolutionizing how people turn ideas into stunning content and we’re just getting started with exciting innovations across image creation, design, video, audio, PDFs and more still to come.”
As officially listed by Adobe, here are the latest innovations that this change brings to Express.
- New all-in-one editor gives users the ability to make high-impact design elements, engaging videos and images, stunning PDFs, animation and standout content ready for Instagram, TikTok and other social channels and platforms.
- Firefly integrated into Express makes it possible to quickly generate custom images and text effects from text prompts in over 100 languages and designed to be safe for commercial use.
- Deep workflows with Creative Cloud apps allow users to easily access, edit and work with creative assets from Photoshop and Illustrator directly within Express, or add linked files that always stay in sync across apps.
- New video, multiple page templates and design elements bring even more inspiration to the largest collection of beautiful, high-quality content, now with nearly 200 million assets including video and design templates, royalty-free Adobe Stock images, video and audio assets, almost 22,000 fonts, plus more icons, backgrounds and shapes.
- PDF support in the new all-in-one editor makes it even easier to import, edit and enhance documents to create visually stunning PDFs.
- More AI-power helps creators to take the guesswork out of design, and quickly find the perfect addition to content or get personalized template recommendations that fit unique styles, to create social media posts, videos, posters, flyers and more.
- Quick actions like remove background in images and videos, animate a character using just audio, convert to GIF and edit PDFs, makes it even easier to create standout content quickly and simply.
- Real-time co-editing and seamless review and commenting capabilities add speed to the creation process.
- Animations like Fade In, Pop, Flicker, Bungee bring text, photos, videos and assets to life in a new way. With Animate from Audio, powered by Adobe Character Animator, watch characters come to life with lips and gestures syncing to recorded dialogue.
Windows Central's take
Whether we like it or not, generative AI is our future. Companies and individuals will either need to embrace it or get left behind as the rest of the world moves forward. The key difference with Adobe's utilization of its Firefly generative AI is that the focus is on helping people create their own projects rather than simply having a server produce everything for you. This maintains a human element to the creation process and allows for more minute control than what is currently provided by many other generative AI programs out there.
Express is intended to be the one-stop shop where people of any skill level can work on creative projects without the daunting aspect of having to learn more complicated programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, or Premiere Pro. It's very intuitive but also well designed so that users can create professional looking finished projects in a variety of areas.
Obviously, there has been a lot of controversy in the last two years over allowing AI chatbots and AI image creators to produce work. These arguments are valid since many AI generators do not disclose where they pull their library of images or databases of knowledge from. Some of the most popular programs outright plagiarize the written word or steal imagery from artists. However, you can feel a little better using Firefly since it pulls from Adobe's own stock of imagery. That, plus the human element that Express requires in order to create projects, keeps Adobe Express with the integrated Firefly beta on more venerated ground.
