Adobe is adding new AI-powered features to its experimental iOS camera app called Project Indigo, launched last year. The app previously offered pro controls, multi-frame super-resolution, and different capture modes, and is now adding features that will use LLMs (large language models) to critique photos and provide editing suggestions.
It’s also adding other AI features, like advanced object removal, depth of field generation, and the ability to add different styles to photos.
Marc Levoy, the person heading Adobe’s project, had previously developed Pixel’s camera chops. He said that most generative AI tools provide prompt-based editing and, often, finding the perfect prompt to tweak a photo or get the right result can be a tricky endeavour. That’s why most of the new experimental AI features are buttons that can generate more deterministic outputs.
For instance, Google’s camera coach feature for Pixel phones, launched last year, offered more generic framing suggestions. Project Indigo’s features, by comparison, are fairly descriptive and could help you learn some photography tricks, even if you don’t agree with the AI assessment.
There are two features in this category. First is the photo critique, which includes a “professional” opinion about framing, lighting, colors, and emotional impact.
The second is capture and edit suggestions, which give you tips about reshooting the photo on how you can change framing, exposure, and objects in the viewfinder. For instance, the app told me to remove the hexagonal white object in the frame from a photo I took.
A second section tells you how you can use an existing photo to make it better using Adobe Lightroom controls.
Photography apps, including Apple Photos, Google Photos, and Adobe Photoshop, have offered object removal for years. But the feature often depends on the user circling or selecting an object by drawing on the screen, which is not perfect every time.
Project Indigo’s new feature gives you toggles for things to remove from an image, like people in the background, trash and trash cans, wires and poles, fences, vehicles, and other clutter. You can also describe a custom object to remove. The results of this feature are pretty impressive.
The app removed my friend and the object he was holding from the background without creating any strange artifacts.
The app also allows you to use AI to create depth of field for a photo to simulate a blurred background.
With this new update, Adobe is also experimenting with the style transfer feature, which lets you turn your picture into tones like watercolor, pen and ink, ink line with color wash, monochromatic, and backlit subject. Some styles remind me of the early days of the Prisma app. With advanced models, the outputs look refined, but style transfer is not a new or useful feature.
Despite Levoy’s criticism of the prompt-based implementation, Project Indigo has its own feature that lets you describe your edit. Users can use it to perform edit flows that are not available in preset tools. But this is also a potential road to slopland.
The company is using Google’s Gemini-based Nano Banana for these features, but it’s open to swapping in other models, including its own Adobe Firefly model. These features, bundled under the AI playground tab, are still in a testing phase, and only select users will get access to them. These features might not ever make it to a wider audience, but it is good to see some features that can make people aware of nuances in photography, rather than just creating more slop.
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