Photoshop
Adobe's raster image editing application; Creative Cloud; Firefly generative AI integrated.
Last refreshed: 10 May 2026
How is Adobe Photoshop changing what counts as an authentic image in journalism?
Timeline for Photoshop
- What AI features does Photoshop have?
- Photoshop includes Adobe Firefly-powered AI tools including Generative Fill (adding or replacing image elements from a text prompt), Generative Expand (extending image borders with AI-generated content), and one-click background removal. These features launched in 2023-24.Source:
- Can you tell if a Photoshop image has been AI-edited?
- Adobe's Content Authenticity Initiative embeds C2PA metadata into Photoshop-edited files to record AI modifications. However, metadata can be stripped, so detection remains imperfect. The initiative is working on browser and platform-level verification tools.
Background
Photoshop is the primary consumer surface for Adobe Firefly generative AI capabilities, having integrated AI-powered features including Generative Fill, Generative Expand, and background removal since 2023. These tools allow users to add, remove, or replace image elements using natural-language prompts, making Photoshop the most widely-used commercial application for generative image editing.
First released in 1988 and a Creative Cloud subscription product since 2013, Photoshop is synonymous with professional image manipulation. It serves photographers, graphic designers, digital artists, marketing agencies, and media organisations globally. Adobe's integration of Firefly directly into Photoshop's core toolset means generative AI is now part of the default workflow for hundreds of millions of Creative Cloud users, a scale no other generative image product has matched.
Photoshop's AI integration is significant beyond the creative industries: it has reshaped journalistic standards on image authenticity, prompted new content-credentials frameworks (C2PA), and intensified debates about AI-generated imagery in media and advertising. Adobe is a founding member of the Content Authenticity Initiative, which develops metadata standards to track AI image modifications.