No doubt you've seen some mind-blowing examples of Photoshop's new AI powered Generative Fill
feature taking social media by storm.
Today I'm going to show you how to access it yourself, and share some examples of ways
you can make use of this magical new technology to enhance your images.
Stick around until the end because I really put it to the test with some surprising results!
Currently Generative Fill is only available in Photoshop's pre-release Beta version, but
if you're watching this in the future, no doubt it will have been rolled out in the
newest Photoshop versions.
To try out the Beta version, you first need to have a Creative Cloud subscription, which
you should have already if you're a Photoshop user of any version after version CS6.
In your Creative Cloud app, you might see Adobe's own promotional banner for the Beta,
otherwise head to Beta Apps in the sidebar and look for Photoshop Beta.
Hit Install, which will install it separately to your main Photoshop app, so don't forget
to open this particular Beta version, not your usual Photoshop shortcut icon.
So let's take a look at some of the ways this powerful new tool can be used.
Perhaps its most effective use is to extend the background of your photos.
We've all wished we had reframed a shot, or need to use an image in a completely different
aspect ratio.
Use the Crop tool to extend the canvas, then make a selection using the marquee tool.
Capture a small overlap of the original image for a seamless transition.
First let's remind ourselves of what we can currently achieve with Content Aware Fill,
which was pretty revolutionary itself when it was first added.
Go to Edit > Fill, then select Content Aware.
As expected, it's pretty much an automated equivalent of the clone stamp tool.
Let's compare that with the new Generative Fill feature.
You'll see the button conveniently placed in the new Contextual Task Bar.
But if you don't see it, enable it from under the Window menu.
If you can't stand this new interface bar, you can also access the tool under Edit > Generative
Fill.
I'll show you some examples of using prompts in a few minutes, but for most use cases,
just allowing Photoshop to do its own calculations with no prompt is just fine.
Check out these amazing results, they're a vast improvement over Content Aware fill.
As with most AI tools these days you also get multiple choices.
Cycle through them in the contextual toolbar, or find them in the Properties panel.
I like this one best, you can see how it has taken the original light source in the image
and cast the shadows appropriately.
You can also add objects to your scene.
Let's try adding a person to this ledge.
Draw a selection with the marquee tool, roughly the size and shape a person would be.
In the generative fill prompt box, lets just try the word Hiker
These results are pretty good.
You can see how the lighting is almost perfect, allowing them to blend almost seamlessly into
the scene.
This woman looks like she's going to jump off the edge, so let's try a slightly more
detailed prompt: Hiker stood on a cliff edge.
We've got one guy who's stood in quick sand, this woman's not even interested in this magnificent
view, and this guy's getting a bit close to the edge for my liking!
You can simply click generate again to try out 3 new variations.
This one is probably the best outcome.
She's probably not in the most suitable attire for mountaineering, but she looks like she
was actually there in real life.
As well as extend the background of a photo, you can also easily replace it entirely.
This setting with pylons in the background isn't very interesting, so take a quick selection
and let's see what Photoshop can come up with instead, again with no prompt.
This landscape is the most realistic.
It looks quite sunny so I'm a bit concerned that he's going to get sunburnt, let's draw
a basic lasso selection and ask generative fill to give him a baseball cap.
Imagine how long it would have taken to try and find a suitable source image of a cap
in the right orientation, cut it out, then place it into the scene.
That's before you even try to replicate this kind of realism in the lighting, shadows,
colour balance and depth of field.
Actually, this guy has some cool yellow shoes, so let's change that prompt to give him a
matching hat.
AI tools still struggle with text and logos, so unwanted elements like this can be fixed
with either a quick content aware or generative fill.
Here's another example of how Photoshop's new tools can help you easily swap out the
background of an image.
You'll notice the contextual tool bar conveniently has some other useful tools for easy access.
Click Select Subject to make an easy selection.
Before clicking Generative fill, go to Select > Modify > Contract.
Enter about 10px just to help produce a seamless transition between the subject and background.
Next go to Select > Inverse, or use the new icon in the contextual toolbar.
For this generative fill we'll tell it exactly what we want with a single word: sand, with
the intentional of making it look like this lady is laid on a beach.
Check out these results.
It's doing something a little dodgy with the hair in places to blend it in, but overall
it's a pretty realistic outcome.
Let's see if we can change her outfit.
There's another useful new tool that will be perfect here.
Find the new Object Selection tool.
It has already detected the entire subject, but change the mode to lasso and draw around
the jacket.
Go to Select > Modify > Expand and give it an extra 10px buffer zone, then let's try
Summer Dress in the generative fill prompt.
The dresses look amazing, but the AI is struggling to fill in the background.
I actually tried this again but the other way around: add the dress first, then the
sand background, which gave a much better result.
The object selection tool was used to select the jacket, which was then expanded by 10px.
The generative fill tool was then used to add a summer dress.
A few generations found this result.
To continue on a fresh slate, a merged copy was made by going to Layer > Merge Layers,
but the ALT key was held to place this merged copy on a new layer.
Then the select subject button made a quick and easy selection of the subject and the
outline of the new dress.
This was then contracted slightly by 10px and the sand background added with generative
fill.
Photoshop still tried to add in some extra hair, but the result around the body is much
better.
This chosen combination looks almost perfect, especially considering it only took a few
minutes.
Generative Fill not only adds objects to a scene, it can also remove them.
Take this image for example, we have no idea what she looks like with her hand covering
her face, but let's see what Photoshop's AI can do with it.
Make a quick lasso selection, followed by the generative fill button with no prompt.
How amazing is that!
Just for comparison, this is the best the Content Aware fill could do.
If this is the beta just imagine what AI is going to be capable of in a few years time!
Where Photoshop's AI generative fill feature really shines is when it's used in combination
with other AI art tools like Midjourney.
Where these other image generation tools fall is the inability to make specific changes.
You get what you're given and if you want to change something, you pretty much have
to regenerate the whole thing.
But with Photoshop you can now easily fix and enhance your midjourney images.
Check out this female Iron Man concept by rippingbag.
It's incredibly detailed but frustratingly the image is cropped a little too tightly.
Not to worry though, with Photoshop we can simply extend the canvas with the crop tool
and let the new Generative Fill tool fill in the gap.
Amazingly, it even generates a whole new arm in the exact same style.
We all know Midjourney has a bit of a problem with hands.
Check out this brilliant scene by Muzi Pear Studio.
It's actually quite hard to believe that all these realistic details can be achieved yet
the hands are so bad!
This is where Photoshop steps up.
By making a selection of this area and typing 'Book' into the generative AI prompt, or maybe
even 'Candle' the image can be fixed within seconds.
That's not to say Photoshop's AI doesn't have its own problems with hands though, it did
take a fair few generations of meaty sausage fingers before getting a slightly more delicate
collection of digits!
Here's another example of how you can improve and enhance your Midjourney images with Photoshop
using nothing but the generative fill tool.
This ninja by Beer Monkey is a slightly awkward composition with the knees being cropped off.
But we can extend the canvas, then fill the new area one side at a time to perfectly paint
in the missing pieces.
Sometimes weird artifacts appear, but those specific areas can be regenerated to fix them
in seconds.
No clone stamping, healing brush or masking required.
It's not perfect though, check out these hilarious and somewhat scary results when you try to
generate a new face.
Some of these could work with a little adjustment, but I think we'll stick with the original.
So as one final experiment, let's see just how far we can push Photoshop' AI by testing
generative fill to the extreme.
This AI generated image of deepfake Megan Fox by Paul V Daley on Midjourney is scarily
realistic, but it's limited to just the upper torso in a square format.
Let's effectively double the canvas size and see if the entire lower body can be generated
from scratch using the power of Photoshop AI...
Oh wow that is amazing
To be fair we have some dodgy things going on with the hands, but we can easily fix those.
Photoshop thinks we're doing something shady here, so let's reassure it by adding the word
'hand'...
This is a feature Midjourney really needs!
With a bit more cleanup work it would be hard to believe the lower half of this image didn't
even exist a few moments ago.
I hope you enjoyed this introductory look at the Generative Fill tool in Photoshop.
It's exciting to think that this is its worst version being a beta, it's only going to get
better when it's officially released in an upcoming Photoshop update.
Post down in the comments if you've found any useful real life use cases for generative
fill in your day to day work
Otherwise thanks very much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.