All right, so this week there were a bunch of big updates from some pretty huge companies, like Apple announced their iPhone 15 lineup, Fujifilm announced updates to their medium format cameras and some new lenses, but I did not expect an update from Adobe. Not in September, when next month they've got their Adobe Max conference. So what they actually announced today was that the generative fill and generative expand technologies that have been available to people using Photoshop Beta is now available to everyone in Photoshop, and that is awesome. So what I want to do is spend a few minutes and show you some practical ways for photographers and how you should actually want to use these tools because they are amazing. This is not going to be about creating a new work of art out of nothing. We're going to actually take an existing photo and I'm going to use things like Generative Expand and Generative Fill which are powered by Adobe Firefly to improve a photo that I just can't improve on because, I would need to get to that location again and that's not feasible for me. So, with that, let's jump right to it. All right, so the first thing you're going to want to make sure of is that you have the latest version of photoshop installed So just load your creative cloud app on mac or windows, Then go to updates over here and then make sure that you have photoshop version 25 installed, You can also if you want remove photoshop beta If if the only reason why you were using it like me was to access that generative fill technology, I don't need it anymore. So I just went ahead and removed it You can do that by going to the beta apps over here If you have the beta version installed click over here and then you'll see an uninstall option All right. So let's go ahead and let's open up Photoshop so I can talk to you about this image So I took this image back in 2010. It's on the High Line in Manhattan. I love this hotel I just love this structure. The problem is that if you look at it because of how I took the photo I didn't leave myself a lot of breathing room like it's really tight over here and over here And just doesn't feel very good like the tower is way too imposing, So what I can do here is use a generative expand and generative fill to improve the photo and just kind of make it a little bit better. To do that, the first thing I'll do is I'll just zoom out a bit here and then I'm gonna go to the crop tool. Now it might seem counterintuitive as to why, you know, we're going to the crop tool, but I'm gonna use the crop tool to basically expand the canvas and then fill it in. So I want to make this a horizontal photo. First thing I'm gonna do here is I'm going to change my ratio then, and I'm going to select 2x3, which is also 4x6, but you can see that it's vertical. And so I want to make this horizontal, so the way to do that is just press the X key. And you can now see that we have the crop box flipped horizontally. Now what I can do is I can expand this. I'll just drag from here to here. And now I have basically a horizontal image at a 3x2 aspect ratio. Now, there's really nothing else to do other than ensure that for this fill drop-down, you have Generative Expand selected, not these other options. Then just click on the check mark and that will process. And as always, whenever you use the Generative Fill and Generative Expand options here, you'll get three different variations. So this one, it's actually kind of cool. I like what it did. There are some issues here with the power lines and stuff. So let's see what else we get. So here, that actually looks pretty cool. Like, that actually, that actually does look pretty cool. I mean, now here's the thing, actually, I have no idea what I'm going to get. This is complete generative fill roulette. Uh, every time I do this, something different will happen. So my reactions are like 100% authentic. I have not seen these results. So on one hand, it's kind of terrifying from a video creator, because you don't know what you're going to get. But on the other hand, these kinds of serendipitous moments are awesome. So here, this looks cool. I mean, it's not perfect. You can tell that, um, there is a lack of resolution and that is very important. That's a point I want to make. All this time that we've been using generative fill, including in Photoshop beta, you are limited to 1,024 pixels on the long end. So anytime you fill anything in any sort of area, whatever is going to be put in there at its native resolution will be 1,024 pixels. If you fill something larger, then it'll. Actually stretch and you can see, depending on the nature of what's filled in, you might be able to see a lack of detail. Now I did speak with Howard Pinsky, who is the design evangelist at Adobe on Twitter. We were just going back and forth and I asked him if he knew whether 1024 was still the max resolution since generative fill is now public. And he did confirm that for now that still is the case, but the better news is he also said that the team is actively working on improving this. We don't know when, but it's for me, reassuring to know that they are working on this, this is something that we should see improvements on. All right, let's get back to it. All right, let's go ahead here. Let's see this third option. That's good too. Like now you have to understand that this is not what's available at the Highline. Like if you are at the Highline, there are other things there, but given the fact that I don't have that information, it's just cool to be able to make something up. And so here I've got these options. If I want another three options, all I need to do is click on generate. And you can see we have three more options here. So let's see if any of these are good, too. I'm thinking maybe this one here. Yeah, I think this is the one I'm going to keep, just to kind of show you what we can do. Now, again, if we zoom in, you can see here at the seam. Let me zoom in even further. You can see where we start to see that loss of resolution. However, because this is something that will probably be viewed on like Instagram or Twitter at about this size, I really defy you to tell me that you can see the loss of detail. Of course, anyone who knows the Highline can tell that that's not actually what's there, but just from a purely visual perspective, you probably won't be able to tell the difference and that's the trade-off, but to me it's a worthy trade-off. So again, we've got the fill here and the best part is that I have my photo at a three by two aspect ratio. So that was generative expand. Now let's look at another use of generative fill and that is to remove distractions or things that you don't want. So that's pretty straightforward as well. All you need to do is take any sort of selection tool. So I'll go ahead here and I will select the lasso tool, and I don't want this particular object. So I'm gonna select it or make a selection around it rather. And then I'm going to click on generative fill and I'm not gonna enter anything here. I'm just gonna keep it blank and then I'm gonna click on generate. And you can see it did a fantastic job of removing that and then keeping everything intact. I can also go ahead here, I'll go to the original layer, And let's say I just don't want this area here. So I'm just gonna make a selection like this. And same thing, Generative Fill, and then click on Generate. And while this is going on, one thing I want to bring up is those tips, they change from session to session. You should read these, they're actually very, very helpful. I wish more developers did that, where it's not just a static tooltip, but it actually changes with helpful information. All right, so that was Generative Fill to remove obstacles. All right, to recap so far, we've used Generative Expand to take an original vertical photo and expand it to a 3 by 2 aspect ratio. Then we use Generative Fill to remove a few distractions. Now, I'm going to use Generative Fill to add some elements to the photo that aren't there to begin with. So, the first thing that I like to do in this case, once I finish expanding the photo and, removing any distractions from the original part of the photo. I will go to the top layer here and I'm going to create a stamped visible layer. And to do that, on the Mac, you're going to press Command-Option-Shift-E or on Windows it would be Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E. Now we have a new layer here that has all of these updates baked into it. So you can either delete these layers or hide them, but this is the new working layer. And because we did that, I can use generator fill to remove things from the areas that were added. So let's say I want to remove this over here and this. So I'm gonna make a selection or a multi selection by holding the Shift key here and just go around these two things and then click on Generative Fill, and then click Generate. And you can see, it got rid of both of those elements and we have these different options here if one kind of works better. This one actually, this third one works best for me. And so it's a little bit cleaner. Now, again, what I want to do is add some stuff. So I'm gonna select that new merged layer, and here I'm just gonna make a rough selection, just kind of a weird shaped oval. I'm gonna click on Generative Fill, but this time I'm gonna type in what I want, a firefly to add. So here I'm gonna say a flock of birds and then I'll click on generate. And you can see there's just like a flock of birds. Here's a different version. There's a different. That's actually a pretty cool one. I like that. And then I'll go on this side here. And let's make a selection up here. And I'll say generative fill. And I'll say an airplane and click generate. That's actually pretty cool. Like it's like an airplane flying away. Let's see what we got here. That's even better because that's like flying towards us. That's I think that's the best one. I like the the kind of the angle it's going at and the best part about all this is that this technology will only get Better we already know that the output resolution when you use generative fill and generative expand should get higher, But the quality of what will be put in should also get better the understanding of your language of what you type, To add stuff will get a more intuitive and it just to me It's so awesome as a photographer that I can marry my love of photography with my love of technology to create even better photos or different photos that I possibly couldn't have because I'm not at the location. So I hope this video inspires you and gets you jazzed up to use Adobe's generative fill technology in Photoshop. If you want to see how to use the same technology for wildlife photos, check out this video. And of course, as always, if this video is helpful, a thumbs up would be wonderful, as well as clicking on subscribe and the bell icon to get notified of future videos. Thanks a lot, everyone.
