This video is sponsored by MSI and the creator Z 17 HX Studio laptop.
"Make The Sweater Red" and the Generative
Fill in Photoshop doesn't make the top red.
The generated sweater looks great, but Photoshop didn't make the original red and
that's because the Generative Fill doesn't do instructional prompts.
Per Adobe's website, it's better to use
descriptive nouns and adjectives in text prompts instead of instructive
prompts like fill the area, create a scene, make red.
This is also true for removing objects.
In an image like this one, you don't need
an instructional command like Remove Person.
As Adobe suggests, leave the prompt blank to fill based on the surrounding pixels.
You get incredible results without typing anything in.
So avoid instructional prompts.
I think the confusion happens when in some
cases typing an instructional prompt gives you good results.
But it's not because of the prompt, leaving it blank, or using descriptive
prompts will give you the same or better results.
So how do you make the sweater red?
Well, you can use your additional Photoshop Tools for that.
As of now, I don't see Gen AI taking your job.
There's still a lot of need for people who genuinely understand Photoshop.
To me, AI is just another Tool to help you create.
My name is Jesus Ramírez, and today I'll share with you four more mistakes you
should avoid when using the Generative Fill in Photoshop.
And do me a favor, if you learn something new, hit the like button and subscribe.
Also, check out the creator's Z17HX in the link below.
We'll talk more about it in a moment.
But first, let's discuss the importance of
the selection shape when generating objects.
My good friend, Colin Smith from Photoshop
Cafe, is the first person I've seen talking about this subject.
He's got a great video on it.
Check it out in the link below.
But one of the mistakes that most people commit with Gen Fill is not considering
the selection shape when generating an object.
If you make a regular selection and simply
use the prompt dog, Photoshop will not surprisingly generate a few dogs.
When you look at the variations, you will
see these dogs laying on the grass and facing to the left.
But what if you want a dog standing and facing to the right?
You can, of course, use prompts to try to
make that happen, or you can use a selection to influence the generation.
With the Lasso Tool, you can draw the
basic shape of a dog, the head, legs, and tail.
There we go.
Once again, I'll simply type dog and I'll generate.
Photoshop will not give us dog standing and facing to the right.
Now, I'm not saying you need to draw
everything out with a selection before you generate.
This is just an example showing you how the selection affects the generation.
I recommend using a combination of prompts
and selection shapes to get the results you want.
Of course, there will be a lot of trial and error.
This technology is not perfect.
It's still in beta and you should be aware
of the factors that influence the generation.
Another mistake you should avoid is generating all objects at 100 % intensity.
I talked about this in a previous video with more detail.
The link is below in the description if you want to check it out.
But I'll explain it here with different examples and techniques.
For this example, I want to add a rainbow over his head.
And as you've seen, the selection shape influences the generation.
So let's create the appropriate rainbow shape over his head.
We'll use two techniques to accomplish it.
The Quick Mask mode, which allows you to
paint selections, and we'll use a path to determine the shape of the brush stroke.
Start by enabling the Ellipse Tool.
In the options bar, select Path from the drop down and drag to make a circle.
Then break the path in half.
If you enable the Pen Tool, hover over the
anchor point and click, you will delete the point but not break the path.
You still have a complete path.
To break the path, enable the Direct
Selection Tool, click on the anchor point to enable it and hit the Backspace Key.
Now you have half a path which is the shape of a rainbow.
If you want to adjust it further, you can
click on the rather, I recommend using the Curvature Pen Tool.
You can drag this anchor point up to change the shape.
Now, enable the Brush Tool.
We'll use the brush to create the selection.
Increase your Brush Size to determine the width of the selection.
In this case, about 300 will work.
Then, then press the Q key to enter the Quick Mask mode.
The layer will turn red in the Layers Panel.
From here, you can paint with black to deselect and white to select.
Start by deselecting everything.
Fill with black, which is currently my foreground color.
I'll press Alt and backspace.
The red overlay indicates that nothing is selected.
You now want to create a selection based on the half circle, the path.
Now double click on the foreground color
and choose white, which is 100 % brightness.
Keep this in mind this is important.
In this case, we will generate a fill at 100 % intensity.
Press OK and switch over to any of the Vector Tools, the Pen Tool will work.
Then right click on the path and choose Stroke Path.
Under the drop down, select brush to create a stroke using the currently active
brush, which is the one you sized a few moments ago.
And it will paint using the current
foreground color, which we set to 100% brightness or white.
Now we have a selection in the shape of a rainbow, but we need to adjust it a bit.
Click on this icon to set the foreground
color to black and with the Brush Tool, paint over the hands to deselect them.
I don't want the hands selected because
the generative fill will generate new hands that look unrealistic.
Now, press the Q key to exit the Quick Mask and you'll see the selection.
Under Generative Fill, type the prompt, rainbow, and hit Enter to generate.
Photoshop will give us these rainbows that don't look very realistic.
One of the problems is that we're using 100 % of the intensity.
Remember, we painted with white.
Let me now show you what a different intensity does with the generation.
After filling with black in the Quick Mask
mode, we can add 50 % in the brightness input box.
You'll see the 50 % gray swatch here, and you can press OK.
Now go back into the Pen Tool, right click on the path and choose Stroke Path.
With brush selected, press OK.
Now you'll see a 50 % stroke on here.
When you generate, the rainbow will show
at 50 % intensity, better matching the background.
This is not reducing the opacity.
The pixels are fully opaque at 100 % capacity.
Instead, the generation is made at 50 % intensity.
The other variations are not bad either.
Remember, you can always click on Generate
again to see if Photoshop gives you something better.
I just realized I forgot to mask the hands, but that's okay.
With the Brush Tool, I'll soften the edges
by reducing the Hardness to zero, and with black, I'll paint on the mask to hide the
new generated hands and bring back the original.
And this is what I've been saying all along.
If you really know how things work and you
know the Tools in Photoshop, you can make anything work.
Now, let me show you a few before and afters using this technique.
In this example, I generated curly hair
over my head at 100 % intensity, and now look at what it does with 40 % intensity.
It kept more of the original shape of my hair, but it made it curly.
In this example, I used the prompt fish
and painted with 100 % intensity on top and 50 % intensity on the bottom to create
the illusion that the fish is jumping out of the water out of the water.
This example is from my video that explains this whole process.
Check it out in the link below.
And by the way, in case you're wondering, you can definitely use traditional tools
to take something with 100 % intensity and blend it with the background.
In some cases, that is a recommendation in their workflow.
But as you saw in the curly hair example,
intensity controls more than the appearance of opacity.
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Let's now talk about why you should avoid
generating content with enabled adjustment layers.
It's essential to note that Photoshop uses
the merge content of your image to generate the fill.
You need to remember to disable your
adjustment layers when generating new content.
If not, the adjustment layers will influence the fill, and if you make any
changes to them, the generated layers will no longer match.
If possible, I recommend placing all your
adjustment layers into a group to easily disable them as you generate objects.
Finally, you should avoid considering the Generative Fill as a one click solution.
It's way more powerful when you combine it with traditional Photoshop Tools.
In this image, I generated this couch and
this table, but if I wanted this specific table to be more reflective, I could not
use a prompt like reflective wooden table because it wouldn't work.
It would generate different tables and that's not what I want.
Instead, what you should do is take advantage of the new Gen Fill and combine
it with older Photoshop Tools to make it more powerful.
So let me show you one way to add a stronger reflection to this table.
You can start by enabling the Rectangular
Marquee Tool and make a larger selection than what you need.
And generate a fill using the prompt Mirror.
Click on generate, and Photoshop will give you an incredible reflective surface.
All you need to do now is go into the blending mode drop down and select Screen
to blend the Mirror layer with the table below.
Then you can disable the layer,
enable the Quick Selection Tool, and drag over the table to select the top.
Enable this newly generated layer, delete the Layer Mask and click on the
Layer Mask icon to create a mask from the selection.
Now you can adjust the opacity to control the intensity of the reflection.
And talking about reflection, you probably
noticed that this is not a perfect reflection.
So if you want to fix it, you can use the
Clone Stamp Tool or any other tool in Photoshop to make it work.
The point is that the Gen Fill is just one more tool in your arsenal of creativity.
You're not stuck with just a one click solution.