Coincidentally, I recently discovered a qualification I have in Adobe Photoshop from an evening course I did at a local college 21 years ago. I distinctly remember back then — as I created bizarre, angsty images for DeviantArt — that Photoshop felt so complex, so broad that it was difficult to imagine how anyone could be a true expert on it. How could anyone really know every slider of every feature? I think I was incorrect back then — it probably was knowable — but at the risk of making the same mistake again, I don't think you can have a complete understanding anymore.
Photoshop 2025 will bring with it a whole host of features, as every major update does, and in this video, Unmesh Dinda goes through his top seven. For me, while contentious, I'm most interested in the AI updates and, in particular, the Generative Fill, which has been upgraded to Firefly Model 3 from Firefly Model 1.
Is there anything in Photoshop 2025 that has caught your eye?
I still use the 2002 version. It still works. I just adjust the image a bit and move on.
All of these new features in adjustment software are marvelous advancements for those who want to use them but I am afraid we are creating visual fiction in the process and then presenting it as fact. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this as it is a part of expression except it has to be labeled for what it is - visual fiction or whatever the catch phrase will be - "synthetic photography", "synthography", "synthetic imaging" or what have you.
In reality, the absolute least amount of necessary adjustment made to a photograph the better.
Wouldn't "synthetic imaging" include all of digital photography?
I mean... who decides where the line is?
Everyone knows that acoustic guitar is real music. The electric guitar is just a way to hide your mistakes. Do we get a warning label so I can feel elitist because I play acoustic?
Sounds silly
We have heard the “all photography is artificial (or synthetic or... whatever)” argument before for both film and digital but if we accept the postulate that photography is the “method of recording the image of an object through the action of light or related radiation on light-sensitive material” (-Britannica) then that argument is moot.
The argument relating to the acoustic guitar is interesting. If we are talking about acoustic music that is broadcast, the sound picked up by the microphone is run through compressing, response shaping and other modifying devices before it arrives at whatever device you are using to listen to it. If we are talking about “recorded” acoustic music, studios have all kinds of devices for pitch correction, harmonizing/doubling, octave adding, looping, response shaping, equalizing, tonal balancing, delay/echo/reverb, etc. So by the time the music is put in the file to be distributed, it is highly processed. And there are acoustic artists who use those devices in live performance regularly- often attached to the sound board. The sales pitch by the manufacturers is some form of “get your live performance to sound like your studio work”. We probably don’t even need to get into the impact of multi-track recording. And let’s not forget that the microphone used, by the nature of its response curve, has an impact on the sound quality.
Probably the closest we can get to “unfiltered acoustic music” is listening to the kid playing guitar in the park on a Saturday morning, the four-piece blue-grass group performing unplugged at the local festival or the symphony orchestra. If we carry the “acoustic music is real music” analogy to photography to its logical conclusion then isn’t that saying the “straight-out-of-the-camera” photograph is the “real” photograph while the camera-raw file is simply a “way to hide your mistakes”?