I Tried Photoshop in ChatGPT and It Went Better Than I Expected.
Generative AI tools continue to improve in photo editing capabilities, and OpenAI’s latest update allows Adobe Photoshop to be integrated directly into the ChatGPT app window (along with Adobe Acrobat for PDF editing and Adobe Express for graphic design). It’s available to everyone for free—you just need a ChatGPT account and an Adobe account.
According to Adobe , the idea is to make “creativity accessible to everyone” by integrating Photoshop tools directly into ChatGPT. The desktop version of Photoshop already has many of its own generative AI features, so it’s essentially AI layered on top of other AI—but is that really useful?
How to Get Started with Photoshop in ChatGPT
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Express, and Adobe Acrobat are now available in ChatGPT on desktop, web, and iOS. At the time of writing, Adobe Express is also available in ChatGPT for Android, and Photoshop and Acrobat are “coming soon.” To evaluate the new integration, I tested it in a desktop web browser.
To get started, simply enter “Photoshop” at the beginning of your search query. ChatGPT should recognize your query and select Adobe Photoshop as the tool for your next request. You’ll also need to go through several confirmation dialogs and connect to an Adobe account (if you don’t have one, you can create one for free).
Once all connections and authorizations are complete, Photoshop is added to the additional fields menu in the request window, so simply click the + (plus) sign to select it. You can begin describing what you want to happen, using the same natural, conversational language you would use for any other request in ChatGPT. You’ll also need to upload an image or provide a public link to it—if you don’t do this before submitting your request, you’ll be asked to do so later.
You don’t need to know the names of all Photoshop’s tools: just describe what you want to achieve, and the appropriate tools will be selected automatically. As an example, Adobe cites the query “make the image more vibrant,” which activates the Bloom, Grain, and Lens Distortion effects—each of which can be adjusted using on-screen sliders. It’s actually quite simple to use.
If you know the names of the tools you need, you can access them by name, and the classic brightness and contrast sliders are a good place to start. You can either say something like “make image brighter” or “adjust image brightness”—both options will bring up a pop-up window that you can use to adjust the brightness, but if you choose the former, the image will already be slightly brighter.
ChatGPT and Photoshop allow you to make adjustments as needed, and you can save the image at any stage. You can also open the processed file in the Photoshop web app at your convenience. This web app uses a freemium model, with advanced features requiring a subscription, and it appears to be the basis for much of the ChatGPT integration.
What can you do with Adobe in ChatGPT?
Adobe offers a handy cheat sheet for ChatGPT tips , which you can review to get a good idea of the program’s capabilities and where you’ll still need full-fledged Photoshop. Note that you can specify specific parts of the image to focus on (for example, “face” or “car”), but this depends on Photoshop in ChatGPT being able to correctly identify where you want to select the area. It should be fairly obvious and clearly defined.
When I tried cutting out objects and removing the background, it worked fine, but then I had to go to the web version of Photoshop to add a different background. It doesn’t have the ability to work with layers or masks, and it can’t remove people or objects from photos. Sometimes, however, ChatGPT throws up a bunch of “thinking” errors indicating it can’t do what the user is asking.
I was able to achieve some interesting color schemes here using hints like “turn all shades in this image blue,” and I like how ChatGPT provides additional instructions on how to achieve the desired effect. You can even say “show some examples,” and it will offer several presets to choose from—all of which, again, can be customized using sliders.
The ability to trigger suggestions like “turn this into an oil painting” or “turn this into a cartoon” is also useful, although the plugin is limited to the effects available in the web version of Photoshop: you’ll be directed to the most suitable effect and advised on how to adjust it to achieve the desired result.
In fact, some of these effects work better in ChatGPT’s built-in graphics editor, which perhaps explains why Adobe wanted to get involved with this project.
If ChatGPT’s image processing capabilities become sufficiently advanced, Photoshop will no longer be necessary for a significant number of users: ChatGPT is already quite effective at removing people and objects from photos. However, it’s not as good at some basic adjustments (such as color and contrast) that Adobe software has been successfully performing for years.
For quick, simple edits you want to make in natural language—especially when you need to manually make adjustments and get advice on what to do next—Photoshop within ChatGPT is a convenient tool, especially since it’s free. However, for more serious edits, you’ll still need to launch the main Photoshop app, or perhaps even ditch Adobe altogether and use ChatGPT’s ever-improving editing tools.