At its very core, Photoshop is a compositing program -- able to combine multiple images into one project. So it's not totally surprising, in this era of generative AI, to see that this core photo editing activity has gotten an AI-powered boost.
Harmonize is the newest Photoshop beta feature. Named after the photo harmonization process, the tool helps seamlessly match an image to a project by naturally blending objects into the background. It uses AI to create a new lighting environment, including adjustments to coloring and shadows. With one click of the Harmonize button, Photoshop will create a kind of invisible layer and apply it over the image, making it blend nearly perfectly with the rest of the project without destroying either image. The before-and-after shots are dramatic, and it aims to cut down what can be a grueling, detail-oriented editing process to mere minutes.
An example of what the harmonize tool can do. The original headshot (left) is illuminated to create a completely relit shot (right). Adobe/Screenshots by Katelyn Chedraoui
Photoshop users got a peek at this tool when it was just a research concept at last fall's Adobe Max creator conference. At the time, I spoke with Adobe Applied research scientist Mengwei Ren, one of the lead engineers on the project, about what potential this tool had for Photoshop users. I followed up this month now that the feature made its official beta debut.
Old editing problems, new AI tricks
After a "very shocking" positive reaction from the Max live audience, in Ren's words, she and the Photoshop team worked to refine the tool. The beta tool, out now, was spurred on by Max and is the culmination of years of machine learning and imagery work.
"We've tried to solve it in different ways," Ren said. "We started with just trying to do relighting on faces, then we also tried a separate model for adding shadows only. At some point, because the gen AI technology is really evolving, and then we started to think wild, like, 'OK, can we really bring this into one unified model?'"
Which is part of what powers the Harmonize tool now.
In the months since Max, the team has enhanced the tool's resolution to get higher-quality outputs, created more precise controls to give users pixel-level alignment and expanded its training dataset to help the tool create accurate lighting conditions for any image. (Adobe's AI user guidelines and terms say it doesn't train on customer content and its models are trained on licensed content, including Adobe Stock and public domain content.)
Faster, smoother compositing is something the Adobe team has been working on for nearly a decade, Stephen Nielsen, senior director of product management for Photoshop, told CNET. Pre-AI era work to improve selection and background removal tools set the foundation for Harmonize. Generative AI technology helped pull all the different pieces of the puzzle together and make it quick for people to use.
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