Adobe’s Project Stardust: AI Photo Editing to Revolutionize Your Creations

At the Adobe Max event next week, Adobe plans to unveil a new AI-powered picture editing tool that greatly simplifies the process of editing photographs even for those without any prior editing knowledge. The new “object-aware editing engine,” known as Project Stardust, supposedly instantly recognizes specific things in standard photos so they can be readily moved and modified, according to a promotional video (viewed through Techspot). Though probably more powerful, it resembles Google’s Magic Editor, which was unveiled yesterday for its new Pixel phones.

A brief rundown of the new program shows elements in an image. For example, as you can see in the given video, the example of a yellow suitcase and shadow are recognized and chosen automatically as though they had been separated using Photoshop’s lasso tool. Next, the video demonstrates how items may be changed as though they were kept on another layer by moving, deleting, or in any other way, and how the empty space behind them is automatically filled in to blend in with the surrounding area.

Similar to Photoshop’s “Contextual Task Bar,” which made its debut earlier this year, Project Stardust has a feature that can recognize the next steps in your creative process and let you make rapid adjustments. A “remove distractors” button appears on the taskbar when a group of blurry individuals is selected in the demo video. Clicking the button causes the crowd to be immediately deleted.

Some of the generative AI capabilities included in Adobe’s Firefly-powered Photoshop tools are also present in the new editing engine. Aya Philémon, the product manager for digital imaging at Adobe, is shown highlighting a portion of the image and typing text into a floating taskbar prompt to replace the highlighted region with artificial intelligence (AI)-generated flowers. In another video, the identical function is applied to swap out certain articles of apparel on a model. The user first chooses the item (such as trainers or a jacket) and then describes what has to be replaced.

The prevalence of these automated design tools is growing in tandem with generative AI advancements. Similar editing capabilities for automatically deleting or modifying items in photos are offered by Canva and Google Photo, which comes pre-installed on Pixel 8 smartphones. Despite this, Philémon promises that the new engine will “revolutionize how we interact with Adobe products.” However, there are few specifics available about Project Stardust, and he believes that the features that have been hinted at thus far are “just a fraction” of its possibilities. The information regarding Adobe’s upcoming AI releases will be revealed at Adobe Max, which begins on October 10th, the following week.

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Adobe’s Upcoming AI Project Will take Image Compositing to a Next Level: Report