62 HAPPENING Adobe MAX
touch-based app that promises to bring the ‘precision and versatility of the desktop experience to the tablet’. Adobe Aero was probably the most intriguing new app introduced at MAX. Aero allows users to author and manipulate AR content on the same device used to view it, such as the iPad Pro. The AR assets might be created in applications like After Effects or downloaded from stock libraries, but they can be manipulated for AR scenes using normal touchscreen gestures, including applying animation. Aero adds interaction through a Behaviour Builder and also lets you export or share the AR content directly from the mobile app. Expect great things, or at least a lot more AR in your social media feed. Last – but certainly not least in terms of publicity – was Photoshop Camera, a new app that ‘brings Photoshop magic to your mobile’. Though not shipping until 2020, it will use AI to gauge the scene in front of the lens, or automatically optimise images from the Camera Roll, as well as offering some manual colour correction tools. Motion and still graphics templates – known as lenses – can be created in Photoshop and the results comped smartly by AI in Photoshop Camera. It doesn’t support RAW, but the app doesn’t appear to be aimed at the pro photography crowd who would want such a facility. Those same users might also question whether the app really deserves the iconic Photoshop branding. When it ships, Photoshop Camera will include a library of lenses and effects from artists and influencers, including Billie Eilish. Introducing the work of these artists and of early adopters of Photoshop Camera, Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis said, “when you see these, it’s clear that capture is truly the new creative.” SMART THINKING But do these apps really represent the next content creation revolution? Perhaps, but not in the way that you’d think. There’s definitely a prevailing theme of appealing to Gen Z – the latest release of cross platform/device video editing app Premiere Rush added export to TikTok to its roster of social media destinations. However, digging deeper behind the headline products and celebrity/influencer conversations reveals a few key indicators of Adobe’s roadmap for the future. With deep learning technology Adobe Sensei, Adobe has grabbed the huge potential in AI with both hands. Creative Cloud features that already use Adobe Sensei include Auto Reframe in Adobe
ANOTHER COLLABORATION TOOL IS A FORTHCOMING LIVESTREAMING FEATURE FOR ADOBE APPS
Premiere, Adobe Stock’s Visual Search, and Match Font and Face-Aware Liquify in Photoshop. And it is what makes Photoshop Camera more than an Instagram filter clone. Sensei isn’t just employed in Adobe’s creative tools – it provides insights for Adobe Experience Cloud, a collection of integrated online marketing and web analytics products, where it is deployed to create personalised experiences. It also powers features in Adobe Document Cloud, such as automatic document scanning with mobiles and streamlining form-based processes. AI on phones isn’t new; my year-old Huawei phone has AI built into the camera to recognise scenes such as ‘stage performance’ or objects such as a dog (sometimes it’s actually my cat, but never mind) and it scans documents smartly too. But Adobe is applying deep learning across the board. In an example at MAX, Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis described how an artist could paint on video footage to change the style of a single video frame and then use Sensei to automatically apply the effect to the whole sequence. ImageTango, yet another Sneak Peek, showed how Sensei can mix a detailed shape of one sketched image and the intricate textures of a stock image to create a combination of both as a new image. When Sensei is casually deployed to fix photos in a consumer-focussed app like
Photoshop Camera, it’s plain to see that AI represents the next revolution for content creation, not just in what it’s capable of doing, but also what it allows artists to ignore or offload, while they explore even greater creativity. PLAYING TOGETHER Collaboration is also seen by many as a key driver for creatives, and Adobe has embraced this with the MAX announcement of cloud documents, cloud-native files that you can open and edit in compatible apps. Not just between people but platforms too. If you use Adobe Fresco on Surface or the iPad, for example, cloud documents will let you seamlessly transfer your work to either device. Illustrator for the iPad will do the same when it ships. Adobe claims your work is always updated, across iOS, Mac and Windows devices. When I used the trial versions of Photoshop for iPad and Photoshop 2020 on my Mac, I found it’s a case of going to Cloud Documents on each device to retrieve it. That in itself works fine, and certainly is useful for portable workflows, but it doesn’t feel exactly like the seamless roundtripping workflow that Premiere Pro and After Effects users enjoy. Another collaboration tool is a forthcoming livestreaming feature for Adobe apps that will allow users to stream work online from within applications and
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