Monthly Archives: February 2024

Ideogram promises state-of-the-art text generation

AI/ML, Typography

Founded by ex-Google Imagen engineers, Ideogram has just launched version 1.0 widely. It’s said to offer new levels of fidelity in the traditionally challenging domain of type rendering:

Historically, AI-generated text within images has been inaccurate. Ideogram 1.0 addresses this with reliable text rendering capabilities, making it possible to effortlessly create personalized messages, memes, posters, T-shirt designs, birthday cards, logos and more. Our systematic evaluation shows that Ideogram 1.0 is the state-of-the-art in the accuracy of rendered text, reducing error rates by almost 2x compared to existing models.

Holy cow, I work at Microsoft!

AI/ML, DALL•E, Shit That Actually Matters

Most folks’ first thought: Wait, whaaaaat?!

Second thought: Actually… that makes sense!

So, it’s true: After nearly three great years back at Adobe, I’ve moved to just the third place I’ve worked since the Clinton Administration: Microsoft!

I’ve signed on with a great group of folks to bring generative imaging magic to as many people as possible, leveraging the power of DALL•E, ChatGPT, Copilot, and other emerging tech to help make fun, beautiful, meaningful things. And yes, they have a very good sense of humor about Clippy, so go ahead and get those jokes out now. :->


It really is a small world: The beautiful new campus (see below) is just two blocks from my old Google office (where I reported to the same VP who’s now in charge of my new group), which itself is just down the road from the original Adobe HQ; see map. (Maybe I should get out more!)


And it’s a small world in a much more meaningful sense: I remain in a very rare & fortunate spot, getting to help guide brilliant engineers’ efforts in service of human creativity, all during what feels like one of the most significant inflection points in decades. I’m filled with gratitude, curiosity, and a strong sense of responsibility to make the most of this moment.

Thank you to my amazing Adobe colleagues for your hard & inspiring work, and especially for chance to build Firefly over the last year. It’s just getting started, and there’s so much we can do together.

Thank you to my new team for opening this door for us. And thank you to the friends & colleagues reading these words. I’ll continue to rely on your thoughtful, passionate perspectives as we navigate these opportunities together.

Let’s do this!

Fun papercraft-styled video

AI/ML

My friend Nathan Shipley has been deeply exploring AnimateDiff for the last several months, and he’s just collaborated with the always entertaining Karen X. Cheng to make this little papercraft-styled video:

Happy birthday to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Camera Raw!

Photography

I’m a day late saying it here, but happy birthday to three technologies that changed my life (all our lives, maybe), and to which I’ll be forever grateful to have gotten to contribute. As Jeff Schewe noted:

Happy Birthday Digital Imaging…aka Photoshop, Camera Raw & Lightroom. Photoshop shipped February 19th, 1990. Camera Raw shipped February 19th, 2003 and Lightroom shipped February 19th, 2007. Coincidence? Hum, I wonder…but ya never know when Thomas Knoll is involved…

Check out Jeff’s excellent overview, written for Photoshop’s 30th, as well as his demo of PS 1.0 (which “cost a paltry $895 and could run on home computers like the Macintosh IIfx for under $10,000″—i.e. ~$2,000 & $24,000 today!).

“Neither Artificial nor Intelligent: Artists Working with Algorithms”

AI/ML

Just in case you’ll be around San Jose this Friday, check out this panel discussion featuring our old Photoshop designer Julie Meridian & other artists discussing their relationship with AI:

Panel discussion: Friday, February 23rd 7pm–9pm. Free admission

Featuring Artists: Julie Meridian, James Morgan, and Steve Cooley
Moderator: Cherri Lakey

KALEID Gallery is proud to host this panel with three talented artists who are using various AI tools in their artistic practice while navigating all the ethical and creative dilemmas that arise with it. With all the controversy around AI collaborative / generated art, we’re looking forward to hearing from these avant-garde artists that are exploring the possibilities of a positive outcome for artists and creatives in this as-of-yet undefined new territory.

“Boximator” enables guided image->video

AI/ML

Check out this research from ByteDance, the makers of TikTok (where it could well be deployed), which competes with tools like Runway’s Motion Brush:

Check out Sora, OpenAI’s eye-popping video model

AI/ML

Hot on the heels of Lumiere from Google…

…here comes Sora from OpenAI:

My only question: How did they not call it SORR•E? :-p

But seriously, as always…

OpenAI, Meta, & Microsoft promote AI transparency

AI/ML

Good progress across the board:

  • OpenAI is adding new watermarks to DALL-E 3
    • “The company says watermarks from C2PA will appear in images generated on the ChatGPT website and the API for the DALL-E 3 model. Mobile users will get the watermarks by February 12th. They’ll include both an invisible metadata component and a visible CR symbol, which will appear in the top left corner of each image.”
  • Meta Will Label AI Images Across Facebook, Instagram, & Threads
    • “Meta will employ various techniques to differentiate AI-generated images from other images. These include visible markers, invisible watermarks, and metadata embedded in the image files… Additionally, Meta is implementing new policies requiring users to disclose when media is generated by artificial intelligence, with consequences for failing to comply.”
  • Building trust with content credentials in Microsoft Designer
    • “When you create a design in Designer you can also decide if you’d like to include basic, trustworthy facts about the origin of the design or the digital content you’ve used in the design with the file.”

Firefly image creation & Lightroom come to Apple Vision Pro

Adobe Firefly, AR/VR, Lightroom

Not having a spare $3500 burning a hole in my pocket, I’ve yet to take this for a spin myself, but I’m happy to see it. Per the Verge:

The interface of the Firefly visionOS app should be familiar to anyone who’s already used the web-based version of the tool — users just need to enter a text description within the prompt box at the bottom and hit “generate.” This will then spit out four different images that can be dragged out of the main app window and placed around the home like virtual posters or prints. […]

Meanwhile, we also now have a better look at the native Adobe Lightroom photo editing app that was mentioned back when the Apple Vision Pro was announced last June. The visionOS Lightroom experience is similar to that of the iPad version, with a cleaner, simplified interface that should be easier to navigate with hand gestures than the more feature-laden desktop software.

Shhh, No One Cares

3D

Heh—this fun little animation makes me think back to how I considered changing my three-word Google bio from “Teaching Google Photoshop” (i.e. getting robots to see & create like humans, making beautiful things based on your life & interests) to “Wow! Nobody Cares.” :-p Here’s to less of that in 2024.

Check out my chat with Wharton

AI/ML

I had a chance to sit down for an interesting & wide-ranging chat with folks from the Wharton Tech Club:

Tune into the latest episode of the Wharton Tech Toks podcast! Leon Zhang and Stephanie Kim chat with John Nack, Principal Product Manager at Adobe with 20+ years of PM experience across Adobe and Google, about GenAI for creators, AI ethics, and more. He also reflects on his career journey. This episode is great if you’re recruiting for tech, PM, or Adobe.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

As always I’d love to know what you think.

Making today’s AI interfaces “look completely absurd”

AI/ML, User Interface

Time is a flat circle…

Daring Fireball’s Mac 40th anniversary post contained a couple of quotes that made me think about the current state of interaction with AI tools, particularly around imaging. First, there’s this line from Steven Levy’s review of the original Mac:

[W]hat you might expect to see is some sort of opaque code, called a “prompt,” consisting of phosphorescent green or white letters on a murky background.

Think about how revolutionarily different & better (DOS-head haters’ gripes notwithstanding) this was.

What you see with Macintosh is the Finder. On a pleasant, light background, little pictures called “icons” appear, representing choices available to you.

And then there’s this kicker:

“When you show Mac to an absolute novice,” says Chris Espinosa, the twenty-two-year-old head of publications for the Mac team, “he assumes that’s the way all computers work. That’s our highest achievement. We’ve made almost every computer that’s ever been made look completely absurd.”

I don’t know quite what will make today’s prompt-heavy approach to generation feel equivalently quaint, but think how far we’ve come in less than two years since DALL•E’s public debut—from swapping long, arcane codes to having more conversational, iterative creation flows (esp. via ChatGPT) and creating through direct, realtime UIs like those offered via Krea & Leonardo. Throw in a dash of spatial computing, perhaps via “glasses that look like glasses,” and who knows where we’ll be!

But it sure as heck won’t mainly be knowing “some sort of opaque code, called a ‘prompt.'”

The first great Vision Pro demo I’ve seen

3D

F1 racing lover John LePore (whose VFX work you’ve seen in Iron Man 2 and myriad other productions over the years) has created the first demo for Apple Vision Pro that makes me say, “Okay, dang, that looks truly useful & compelling.” Check out his quick demo & behind-the-scenes narration: