What is Adobe Firefly? Basics of the AI Image Generator

What is Adobe Firefly?

Adobe Firefly is a generative AI model created by Adobe. It allows users to create images with text prompts and other tools.

Firefly is available as a standalone tool, but it is also the name of Adobe’s model, and the general technology powering AI features in Creative Cloud software like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Express.

Features

Firefly offers many tools for creating and adjusting images, including:

A User Interface (UI) with visual options
Art or Photo options
Reference image support
Styles and effects
Creative Cloud integrations

These features help Firefly stand out as a creative tool, especially compared to alternatives like Midjourney, which don’t include a traditional interface.

AI Ethics

Firefly is designed with a strong emphasis on ethical considerations, reflecting Adobe’s commitment to AI ethics. The model is trained on licensed content and public domain materials, ensuring the content generated is safe for commercial use and does not infringe on copyright laws.

Adobe is also a founding collaborator of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), which aims to set an industry standard for content authenticity. This initiative promotes transparency about the use and origins of content.

Additionally, Adobe partners with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) to develop standards that help creators and consumers understand the origins of digital content and ensure it’s labeled correctly when AI has been used in creation.

Example Results

Below are some images generated by Firefly Image 3. The captions serve as prompts to generate the results.

"an airport filled with balloons" — “an airport filled with balloons”

A painter at their easel in a studio — “an airport filled with balloons”

Pros & Cons

Let’s take a quick look at Firefly’s benefits and drawbacks.

Pros

Creative Cloud software integrations.
The interface makes it easy to create and adjust images.
Great at producing photos that look like stock photography.
Fast results with multiple options

Cons

Not as perceptive as other models like OpenAI’s DALL-E.
Quality heavily wavers depending on the type of request.
Doesn’t overlook typing errors like “beanstock” vs. “beanstalk”.

Bottom Line

Firefly is most powerful when combined with Adobe’s other software. While the standalone web app has a handy interface and can generate great results, Firefly’s greatest potential is in its combined use with creative direction and skills.