• 2 min read
Adobe adds AI photo critique to Project Indigo
Adobe’s experimental iOS camera app Project Indigo is testing AI tools that critique photos, suggest edits, and remove objects more precisely.
Image: TechCrunch
Adobe is expanding its experimental iOS camera app Project Indigo with a new set of AI-powered tools, including one that critiques your photos and suggests how to improve them. The app, launched last year, already offered pro controls, multi-frame super-resolution, and different capture modes.
The new features focus on guided editing rather than relying entirely on text prompts. Marc Levoy, who leads the project and previously helped build the Pixel camera’s reputation, said prompt-based photo editing often makes it hard to get the result you actually want. Adobe’s answer is a series of more structured tools designed to produce more predictable results.
One of them, photo critique, gives what Adobe frames as a “professional” opinion on a shot’s framing, lighting, colors, and emotional impact.
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A second feature offers capture and edit suggestions. It tells you how to reshoot an image by adjusting things like framing, exposure, and objects visible in the viewfinder, then suggests how to improve an existing image using Adobe Lightroom controls. In one example, the app recommended removing a hexagonal white object from the frame.
Adobe is also updating object removal. Instead of forcing users to circle items manually, Project Indigo now offers toggles for categories such as:
- people in the background
- trash and trash cans
- wires and poles
- fences
- vehicles
- other clutter
Users can also describe a custom object to remove. According to TechCrunch, the tool removed a person and an object he was holding from the background without introducing obvious artifacts.
The update also adds AI-generated depth of field to simulate background blur, plus a style transfer feature with looks such as watercolor, pen and ink, ink line with color wash, monochromatic, and backlit subject. There is also still a prompt-based editing tool for changes that preset controls can’t handle.
Adobe is using Google’s Gemini-based Nano Banana for these features for now, though the company says it could swap in other models, including Adobe Firefly. The tools sit under an AI playground tab, remain in testing, and are available only to select users for now.
Computing Editor
Tomas lives in the terminal. He covers chips, laptops, and operating systems with a focus on performance and efficiency. He reads kernel changelogs the way other people read fiction, and he's always on the hunt for the perfect mechanical keyboard switch. If it processes data, Tomas has an opinion on it.
via TechCrunch
