Adobe Introduces AI-Powered Tools to Enhance Stock Image Customization

Adobe is making it easier to find the stock images and content your business needs

Contributors will still get compensation when their image is used Adobe has rolled out two new features designed to make it easier for users to find and customize stock images, which it says comes in response to the growing need for businesses to find suitable images that match their brand identity. The software giant has launched a pair of generative AI tools to help businesses modify and personalize existing stock content in order to make it more tailored to their needs. Using Adobe's Firefly AI technology, the updates include two new tools - Generative Edits and Generate Variations - which can both be accessed from within Adobe Stock. "With demand for content increasing, we wanted to provide opportunities for creators to develop content at scale with confidence and continue to support our Contributor community," commented VP for Adobe Strategy, Design, & Emerging Products, Matthew Smith. Besides offering more options for the users of stock images, Adobe also hopes that images will become more versatile, therefore contributors are more likely to license their images and generate an income, making the update a win-win for both sides of the transaction. "Contributors are compensated when their Stock asset is used as a reference and the resulting generated output is downloaded," Smith added. With Generative Edits, users will be able to replace and remove backgrounds as well as expand images using generative AI to fill different aspect ratios. The Generate Variations tool lets users pick between different image styles to match existing content and ensure consistency, and composition such as image outline and depth. Even with the generative AI tweaks, Adobe claims that outputs are commercially viable and backed by IP indemnification for eligible customers. Generative Edits and Generate Variations are now generally available for Adobe Stock customers. Using the generative AI features will use a generative credit, and an additional Adobe Stock credit may be used depending on the plan type.

You Can Now Use AI to Edit Adobe Stock Photos Before Licensing Them

Adobe Stock, one of the biggest stock photography and imagery collections, is getting new AI updates. Adobe's AI model Firefly is powering two new features: generative edits and generative variations. They do exactly what they sound like; with generative edits, you can use AI to tweak existing images, and generative variations use stock photos as reference guides to create new images. Generative edits will include the ability to remove a stock image's background, replace a background with AI-generated elements and expand an image, like turning a square image into a 16:9 rectangle. These tools use the base stock image to create a cohesive image with the original and AI-generated elements. Generative variations will create entirely new images, using the stock image as a style or composition reference. So if you like the set-up of one image -- the elements' placement, depth, clarity, etc. -- you can tell Firefly to reference that design when generating whatever you prompt it with. You can do the same thing with style, guiding the AI toward a particular color palette or aesthetic. Photographers who submit their work to Adobe Stock already agree to let the company train its AI models on their creations, and they won't be able to opt out of these new AI tools being used on their work. Stock contributors will be paid for times when their work is used to generate alternative versions and those AI versions are downloaded. Adobe said that adding these tools "increases the versatility of an asset, making it more likely to be licensed." Stock libraries like Adobe's have become even more important in the age of AI as tech companies look for sources of content to train their models on. Adobe's AI models are only trained on Adobe Stock and other public domain content (like content where the copyright has expired), not from individual creators' content or pulled from the open web.

Adobe Adds AI Tools to Its Stock Photography Business

(Reuters) - Adobe on Tuesday added software tools that let its customers use artificial intelligence to create images based on its library of stock images, while still paying the original creators of those images. Adobe, the company behind tools such as Photoshop that are widely used in the content creation business, has been rushing to add AI tools to its software as it faces image generation technology from newer firms such as OpenAI. Adobe's strategy has been to ensure that content it generates is legally safe to use in commercial work and to compensate artists. The tools released Tuesday let customers start with a stock image from Adobe's collection then modify it with AI to meet their needs. The creator of the original image is compensated as if their unmodified original image was used. Matthew Smith, vice president at Adobe for strategy, design and emerging products, said that while some Adobe users like to generate images from text prompts, many customers want conventional stock imagery modified a bit for their specific purpose. "A majority of people still have a blank canvas problem," Smith told Reuters. "Generative AI is not replacing stock (imagery). It's not replacing creatives or contributors. It's enhancing and giving them more potential opportunity to increase their earnings." (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)