AI’s Got Talent! - Part 3: Adobe Firefly
Buzz! Buzz! I hear a buzz! Where is it coming from? There are hardly any bees in Antarctica!
Nope. Not a bee, a firefly. And not just any firefly… Adobe Firefly! This generative AI tool can transform a text prompt into an image (similar to DALL-E 2), style text with calligraphy and fonts as well as edit images by recolouring them and adding/subtracting elements. It has 4 major capabilities: generating art, generating images, editing images and editing videos.
So, how exactly does Adobe Firefly work? Here’s a stepwise dropdown list of what it does behind the scenes to deliver your - completely original - product!
A machine learning technique called “generative adversarial networks” (GANs) is used by Adobe Firefly to form images.
This technique has two parts to it: a generator and a discriminator
What the generator does is generate new images depending on the text prompt it was given.
Whether the created image matches the real images in the dataset will be checked by the discriminator, after which it will give feedback to the generator.
As the generator practices forming pictures, it will become better at forming images that accurately match the text prompts.
Adobe Firefly can be used for many things. After all, if it has no applications in the world, it will be of no use to anybody! Unfortunately, there is not enough information about how Adobe Firefly can be used in different fields. However, what I can say is it does have some of the applications DALL-E 2 has, as the two AI tools do similar things. Check out my post on DALL-E 2 to understand more about the ways that both generative AI tools can help industries and subjects.
No AI tool is perfect. Adobe Firefly has its fair share of limitations. It’s time for a… you guessed it… a dropdown list!
Does not generate good quality images of copyrighted characters like Mickey Mouse, Mario, Deadpool, Donald Duck, etc
Custom fonts cannot be used. There are a set of 12 fonts that can be used, but that’s it.
Unfortunately, again there is limited information about Adobe Firefly. It is a very new product, which is why there is not much about it available. To make up for not having to much to say at this point about Adobe Firefly, and to ensure that you are still able to cast a proper vote for the winner of AI’s Got Talent!, I’m going to compare Adobe Firefly with other AI tools.
For starters, Adobe Firefly can do 4 unique things, while its opponents cannot do as many. AI image creators have also been condemned a lot about ethics. What I mean to say is, all the image generators take inspiration from existing images and create new ones that look similar to the original ones. They use other artists, designers and photographers’ work as sources. Technically, humans use each other’s work as sources, so shouldn’t AI be allowed to do the same? But humans cite their sources; AI doesn’t. There is a lot of debate about it. What are your thoughts on the matter? It’s only Adobe stock images that Adobe Firefly has trained on. This means that the images Adobe Firefly takes inspiration from are solely ones that have been bought and paid for. There are also plans being formed by Adobe to build a compensation model for creators once Firefly leaves beta.
Adobe has entered the AI race, and is a powerful contestant! Adobe Firefly comes complete with image and artwork generators as well as editors for external images and videos. It is also in the clear in terms of ethics. It’s a great AI tool, perhaps better than all the other artwork and image generators. But it’s important to remember that it’s a new product, and has its own shortcomings.
Keep this in mind when you cast your vote!
References:
Adobe Inc. "Adobe Firefly." Adobe, Adobe Inc., 2021, https://www.adobe.com/products/firefly.html.
Helyer, Ruby. "What Is Adobe Firefly? Learn How to Use This AI Tool." MakeUseOf, MUO Media, 23 Mar. 2023, https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-adobe-firefly-generative-ai/.
ChatGPT. "How do I explain how Adobe Firefly works - the technical details - in a very basic, stepwise way for children?" AI-generated response, OpenAI, 7 May 2023, 10:20am, https://www.chat.openai.com/.
Broz, Matic. "Adobe Firefly review: How does it measure up?" Photutorial, 21 Apr. 2023, photutorial.com/adobe-firefly-review/. Accessed 7 May 2023.
"Compare Adobe Firefly vs DALL-E 2." Slashdot, slashdot.org/software/comparison/Adobe-Firefly-vs-DALLE-2/. Accessed 7 May 2023.
McGarvie, Eli. "The Best AI Image Generators So Far…." wearedevelopers, 30 Mar. 2023, www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/best-ai-image-generators. Accessed 7 May 2023.
Raj, Gowtham. "Pros and Cons of Adobe Firefly Generative AI." Decentralized Creator, 8 Apr. 2023, decentralizedcreator.com/pros-and-cons-of-adobe-firefly-generative-ai/. Accessed 7 May 2023.
I'm going to have to use Adobe Firefly!! didnt even know it existed. A master class as always Pengi. Thank you. 'you've done it again' ! (taught me something new)
Keep up the great work.
I’m liking this series more and more with every post. I know there are all these new tools out there but it’s really useful to get a useful lowdown on them (and it makes for fun reading too!!) Good stuff 👏🏼🔥