Skip to main content

In sneak preview, Adobe shows off tech for automatically colorizing old photos

In what has become a popular tradition at the annual Adobe MAX show, Adobe showed off several sneak previews of in-development technologies that may make their way to future versions of Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and more. For example, Character Animator, which recently came out of beta, was unveiled during a previous MAX show. While all of the projects are interesting in their own right as examples of cutting-edge software tech, a few stand out for photographers and video editors.

Powered by the Adobe Sensei AI engine, Project Scribbler can take a black and white photograph and automatically colorize it with surprisingly realistic results. The program was trained on tens of thousands of images to be able to recognize facial features of a monochrome image and appropriately apply correct colors to different regions of a face, from the hair to the skin to the lips and teeth.

Recommended Videos

Although Project Scribbler is currently limited to faces — it can’t colorize full-body portraits — it is not limited to photos; it can colorize sketches, as well. In a live demonstration, Adobe showed how it can help an artist ideate a character or do a quick mockup to show a client before diving in and finishing the color by hand.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Sensei was definitely a running theme at MAX this year, and two additional projects are using it to provide a much more robust alternative to Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill option for removing and replacing objects in a scene. Project Scene Stitch draws on deep learning and semantic cues to replace a photo’s foreground with one built from Adobe Stock images, while Project Deep Fill applies similar technology to replace smaller objects within an image. Deep Fill can also reshape objects based on user input, which Adobe demonstrated by sketching a heart line beneath a rock arch which caused the arch to conform to the shape of the sketch.

For video editors, Project Cloak is essentially Content Aware Fill applied to video. It automatically removes objects from a video shot without the user needing to clone out the object on a frame-by-frame basis, and it does it in a way that is much more accurate that per-frame editing.

In a series of examples, Adobe demonstrated the impressive range Project cloak offers, from removing a lamppost to erasing two people from a shot where both the people and the camera were moving. If this technology makes it way into a shipping product (our guess is it would end up in After Effects), it would undoubtedly be a game changer for many editors.

For immersive video creators, Adobe also showed off two projects for working in 360-degree space. Project Sidewinder builds a depth map from stereoscopic 360 video which then creates a convincingly real three-dimensional effect and allows the viewer to change perspective beyond simply rotating, moving from side to side or up and down. When it comes to audio, Project SonicScape  offers a visual way to see and reposition audio sources with the spherical space.

Adobe showed off 11 development projects in total that ran the gamut from photography and video to design and 3D modeling and even data visualization. As with past Adobe sneaks, none of the technology demonstrated at MAX is guaranteed to be incorporated into a commercially available product, but the projects do offer a very real look at what Adobe is looking into and the types of tools we can expect to see in the not-too-distant future.

Daven Mathies
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Daven is a contributing writer to the photography section. He has been with Digital Trends since 2016 and has been writing…
NASA astronaut Don Pettit talks photography from the space station
NASA astronaut Don Pettit discussing his photography from aboard the ISS.

NASA ASTRONAUT DISCUSSES PHOTOGRAPHY IN SPACE WITH NASASPACEFLIGHT.COM

NASA astronaut Don Pettit arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in September on his fourth orbital mission in 22 years. Besides working on various science projects on the space-based facility, Pettit is also known for his keen interest in photography, and he regularly shares his impressive efforts -- including rivers, clouds, star trails, and high-speed spacecraft -- on X and Instagram.

Read more
Target has great deals on the Fujifilm Instax cameras today
The Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 on a white background.

If regular camera deals look a little overwhelming or too expensive, you should check out what Target has to offer. Right now, there are some great deals on Fujifilm Instax cameras, which are perfect for those times you want to take some quick snaps and not worry about fancy settings. The deals include the Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 and the Fujifilm Instax Wide 400 Instant Camera. Let’s take a look at both cameras and see which will suit you best. Each camera is a great gift for someone this holiday season, but it’s also a fun way of snapping anything you want during the festive period.
Fujifilm Instax Wide 400 Instant Camera -- $140 $150 7% off

For that instant retro look, check out the Fujifilm Instax Wide 400 Instant Camera. It takes 3 x 5 instant photos, so it’s good for shooting wide shots. Sure, it won't compete with the best DSLR cameras, but it's a fun way of taking some quick snaps. It has a rugged yet beautiful design, so it can handle a few more bumps than most cameras. It offers easy-to-use analog-style controls with a choice of three focus modes; these include normal, landscape, and macro when using the relevant and included close-up lens. It provides automatic exposure, flash control, and a self-timer with an LED countdown, so all the essentials are here. The Fujifilm Instax Wide 400 Instant Camera also has two viewfinder framing guides to assist in composing your image, and you can add a tripod mount if you want.

Read more
This astronaut took an astonishing number of photos during his 2024 mission
Matthew Dominick in the Cupola on space station.

If Matthew Dominick ever offers to show you his travel photos, just confirm with him first that he’s edited them down from the half a million pictures that he took during his trip into space.

Yes, that’s how many images the NASA astronaut captured during his six-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), which ended in October.

Read more