This year’s theme for Adobe MAX was “creativity for all,” or at least I’m pretty sure that’s the theme since you could find it emblazoned on every sweatshirt they were handing out.
But, as far as mission statements go, it’s not too shabby. There’s a little something for everyone at MAX, and it’s not just in the form of hours-long tutorial sessions, motivational musings, and product launches, though it is most certainly that as well; there were keynote speeches and appearances from M. Night Shyamalan, Takashi Murakami with Billie Eilish, and David LaChapelle, as well as a Bash performance from living Lacoste polo Vampire Weekend.
No M. Night style twists here, kids, just the goods. Here’s what we saw at this year’s MAX.
Photoshop Camera
Sensei was the magic word echoed throughout the opening keynote, and Adobe is betting big on an AI-powered future that runs on machine learning technology so that designers and artists can free themselves up for all the fun, creative-type stuff.
So, the most significant release this year that leans heavily on Sensei would be the brand new Photoshop Camera app. The premise is this—what if you could bring the magic and utility of photoshop to a mobile camera app? In other words, it’s Instagram without all the social stuff (and, hey, maybe that’s a great thing if you want to free yourself from a Zuckerberg-less world).
Now, from the point of capture, you can shoot, edit, and apply different filters and lenses to your image, all while Sensei enhances the photo quality for you and makes smart recommendations in real-time. Pop artist Billie Eilish was on hand, and she collaborated with Adobe on a few of the lenses for the app’s initial release; similarly, users will eventually be able to create their own at some point in 2020.
In a blog post, executive vice president and CTO Abhay Parasnis said, “Leveraging Adobe Sensei intelligence, the app can instantly recognize the subject in your photo and provide recommendations, and automatically apply sophisticated, unique features at the moment of capture (i.e., portraits, landscapes, selfies, food shots), while always preserving an original shot. It also understands the technical content (i.e., dynamic range, tonality, scene-type, face regions) of the photo and automatically applies complex adjustments.”
More Dimension Updates
OK, we couldn’t NOT talk about the latest Dimension updates because holy geez wow this thing renders super fast. And that’s not just hyperbole, as we used it for our annual Conference and Awards show between sessions and keynotes at MAX, saving us nearly 20 minutes of hard labor and editing because of the Render Preview experience. Instead of waiting to see our changes firsthand, we were able to grab some coffee (er, work on other things).
Additionally, you can add and customize multiple lights, giving designers the ability to control the placement and overall tone of lighting, perfect for the upstart brand that can’t afford a costly photoshoot.
Plus, when you’re all done, you can even throw your design into Adobe Aero, that way you can see your work and how it functions in the real world using AR.
Which brings us to…
Adobe Aero Goes Live, Officially
Last year, Adobe announced Project Aero, a means of creating immersive AR content that you can view in the real world through your favorite lifemate/cellphone. After a year of beta testing, and letting a few brands and digital artists get their grubby little hands on it, Adobe officially released Aero. Best of all, you don’t need any coding skills whatsoever, and it’s available today as a free mobile iOS app for phones and tablets (desktops, fingers crossed, later this year).
As demonstrated during the keynote, users scan the area around them using their device, and then they start bringing in their work from Dimension. Not only can you view multiple layers in your design, but you can also key in behaviors and animate on an infinite loop with your objects, becoming the choreographer your two left feet wouldn’t allow you to be when you tried to plan that synchronized dance for your wedding. You can share and publish directly from the app, or send the work to a client—and amazingly enough, you can do this all in a matter of minutes.
While Aero might feel like an unpolished gem at the moment, immersive, 3D content is a new way for designers, artists, and brands to tell meaningful stories and connect with audiences, and likely we’re going to see a lot more of it in the coming years as the technology continues to improve.
Adobe Substance
When Adobe acquired Substance earlier this year, the writing was on the wall—Adobe wants to be at the forefront of 3D technology.
Substance is a texturing and material software used predominantly in gaming, film and television, architecture, and product design, turning 3D images into photo-realistic objects—could be some gruesome scales or fur on a creature or the leather interior of your BMW. You can use Substance Painter and Substance Alchemist (which is officially out of beta as of MAX) to paint with brushes similar to Photoshop’s so that you can shape 3D layers and textures while also creating your own materials or altering existing ones.
Add these programs up—Substance, Aero, and Dimension—and you have a trio of tools that could potentially revolutionize how we package products. Given that Adobe wants to make last year’s Fantastic Fold Sneak a reality, you could design a product from soup to nuts (or packaging vessel to substrate) without ever having to touch the physical object until you purchase it from the store.
Of course, a brand or a designer will always want to see something tangible, something they can physically hold before they decide to go to market, but with software like Substance, you can iterate again and again, perfecting and tweaking your designs with relative ease.
