Welcome to a new Cross-Product Creative Challenge! Thanks to everyone who participated in the alternate timeline challenge. Even if your answers aren’t visible now, we’re told they will be soon!This time, we’re going to the movies.The Challenge:Design a movie poster for an action adventure movie. The standard movie poster size here in the US is 27x40, so that is your aspect ratio. Start in Firefly or Boards or Express or Photoshop, but DO NOT stop at a prompt. None of the models use that ratio, for one thing, but there are quality details (lighting, contrast, composition) and content details (titles, credits, franchise logo) you will have to get right.Guidelines:A prompt is not enough. Layer your assets and refine your composition. Treat Firefly as a collaborator, not a shortcut. Use prompts to generate characters. Try out partner models. Think like a director. What’s the story here? Who are the characters? What's happening in the scene? It’s a Cross-Product Challenge! Don't do it all in Firefly. Use Photoshop, Illustrator, Substance, Adobe Express, Fresco—whatever tools will help you build the scene. Share your process. Tell us how you created it. What tools did you use? How did you refine your idea? What choices did you make?This poster starts with the main image, “split” in Photoshop so that the Indira hero is on a separate layer from the background. Generative Expand in Photoshop extended the image to the correct 27x40 aspect ratio and I used the Camera Raw filter to adjust the lighting, contrast, color, and sharpness of the Indira character. The Indira character is a little too small in the AI-generated original, so I also enlarged her. The Indira “franchise” logo is from Nano Banana.I made the main title in Illustrator using 3D and Substance material for the gold foil, and put everything together in InDesign, including all of the typography. The credits are set in Univers 39 Ultra Compressed, but any skinny font will do the job. (Hint: The Easter eggs are mostly in the credits.)

Community Expert

StickyQuestion

Cross-Product Creative Challenge #12: Action Movie Poster

Forum|Forum|7 days ago
March 18, 2026
14 replies
321 views

Welcome to a new Cross-Product Creative Challenge! Thanks to everyone who participated in the alternate timeline challenge. Even if your answers aren’t visible now, we’re told they will be soon!

This time, we’re going to the movies.

The Challenge:

Design a movie poster for an action adventure movie. The standard movie poster size here in the US is 27x40, so that is your aspect ratio. Start in Firefly or Boards or Express or Photoshop, but DO NOT stop at a prompt. None of the models use that ratio, for one thing, but there are quality details (lighting, contrast, composition) and content details (titles, credits, franchise logo) you will have to get right.

Guidelines:

A prompt is not enough. Layer your assets and refine your composition. Treat Firefly as a collaborator, not a shortcut. Use prompts to generate characters. Try out partner models.
Think like a director. What’s the story here? Who are the characters? What's happening in the scene?
It’s a Cross-Product Challenge! Don't do it all in Firefly. Use Photoshop, Illustrator, Substance, Adobe Express, Fresco—whatever tools will help you build the scene.
Share your process. Tell us how you created it. What tools did you use? How did you refine your idea? What choices did you make?

This poster starts with the main image, “split” in Photoshop so that the Indira hero is on a separate layer from the background. Generative Expand in Photoshop extended the image to the correct 27x40 aspect ratio and I used the Camera Raw filter to adjust the lighting, contrast, color, and sharpness of the Indira character. The Indira character is a little too small in the AI-generated original, so I also enlarged her. The Indira “franchise” logo is from Nano Banana.

I made the main title in Illustrator using 3D and Substance material for the gold foil, and put everything together in InDesign, including all of the typography. The credits are set in Univers 39 Ultra Compressed, but any skinny font will do the job. (Hint: The Easter eggs are mostly in the credits.)

duuufner

Community Expert

What a fun challenge. I wrote in Firefly “Create a movie poster for an original apocalyptic action-adventure film called “Dumb Asses” about 2 teenage boys in Manhattan during the summer. They are surrounded by sewer people. Use photographic imagery.” Whenever I wrote zombie into firefly it never does the prompt. lol

duuufner

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

What was your process? Looks like it was just a prompt, which isn’t what the challenge is about.

@mj

Community Expert

Thnx as always Alan. This film is an @AlanGilbertson production in case you didn’t know 🙂

Image in FF. Then asjustments in Ps, copy in Ai and final placement and export from Id with elemetns from FF.

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

Deliciously creepy, Mo! Looks like a creature that’s tunneled out from under the mine dumps. 🤣

Thomas-34

Participant

poster with firefly

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

That’s a promising start, but this challenge isn’t about what you get from a prompt. It’s about the process of creating a finished product that someone could actually use. Give it another try.

KShinabery212

Community Expert

So here are some images that Firefly generated with my prompt.
I wish I had more room for my prompts. I can get very detailed when I used ChatGPT or Google Gemini.
But I ran out of room when using Firefly.

Let's connect on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshinabery/

KShinabery212

Community Expert

I was changing a lot of the prompt at various times. Example various gang members from Cyberpunk 2077.

I actually just did something similar in the beginning of the month as some friends were traveling abroad so I created movie posters of each of them.
But I did that all on ChatGPT as I could ad up to three reference photos and describe how I wanted the reference photos to work.

Let's connect on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshinabery/

lambiloon

Community Expert

Charracter created with Firefly rest done with Photoshop

Ali Sajjad / Graphic Design Trainer / Freelancer / Adobe Certified Professional

Christelle RD

Community Expert

I used two assets of Adobe stock : a unicorn and a sculpture - both were in a lush nature. I used Ps to blend them. I generated the warrior on Firefly and enjoyed the rotate tool on Ps Beta to place her perfectly. I used Ai for the title and the logo - I generated the butterfly on Ai and again enjoyed the rotate tool - from a flat butterfly it gave me a butterfly with flying wings. Amazing. Then, back to Ps, I harmonized, define a graphic style to generate with Gemini a cohesive work and used camera raw as a final touch.

Introduction to the story:
In the near future, almost all humans have been turned to stone by a dragon seeking to seize their lands and riches.
The Great Architect decides to raise Atlantis from the depths and asks Jasmine, a powerful unicorn, to defeat the dragon and save what remains of humanity. Jasmine travels to the ancient lands and defeats the dragon, who had just turned a young mother to stone but hadn’t had time to do the same to the baby. Wounded, Jasmine decides to return to Atlantis with the baby, whom she names Ness and raises as her own daughter. She then suggests to Ness that she continue the work she started, for there are still humans on the ancient lands above water; most are enslaved by those who have seized power on each of the continents, and nature is being increasingly mistreated... The adventure begins: there is much to do, and she must find allies...

P

PatrickSB72

Community Expert

I love it! :-)

Christelle RD

Community Expert

Thank you Patrick!

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

I made two posters for this challenge before choosing the one that started this thread. This is the one that didn’t make the cut.

It is slightly more complicated under the hood, because I had to add the bloom (glare) of the sunlight in front of the title to match the bloom spilling onto her hair. (It’s a single soft large brush spot in a yellow picked from the scene and converted to “Screen” blend mode.) The process otherwise is almost identical.

Christelle RD

Community Expert

Love the grainy vibe and the warmth the the tittle brings!
I’m sorry I don’t know everyone mentioned in the text. As for those I do know, the role suits them perfectly 😊

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

Thanks, Christelle. There’s a lot of Camera Raw filter involved! What was interesting with this project was using Nano Banana to create a bunch of different images all with the same hero character, something that has not been possible with the Firefly models.

lambiloon

Community Expert

Promt:

Create a movie poster for an original action-adventure film. The hero is a male adult resembling Bruce Lee with martial arts skills. Her secret weapon is a wooden armour with magical powers.

Then

All work done in photoshop

Ali Sajjad / Graphic Design Trainer / Freelancer / Adobe Certified Professional

tonks_the_auror

Community Expert

tonks_the_auror

Community Expert

I wrote up my process and then I got an error message and lost it all.

FIREFLY:
Prompt 1: Create a movie poster for an original action-adventure film called “Lord Voldemort vs. the Daleks.”
Prompt 2: Create an image of the Hogwarts castle at night
Prompt 3: Merge these two images so the Hogwarts castle is in the background on the left and the spaceships are firing on the castle.

PHOTOSHOP:
Expanded the canvas to the correct size and used Content Aware Fill to fill in the edges.
Used select subject to copy the Voldemort character, paste onto a new layer, and add a drop shadow.
Saved as .psd.

InDesign:
Imported the psd. Sampled the colors from the image and added them to my swatches palette.
Added the text, chose the fonts, sizes, and colors.
Played around with effects on the text--drop shadow and Bevel and Emboss.
Exported to JPG.

AlanGilbertson

Author

Community Expert

Awesome, Michele! I’m a big Doctor Who fan who remembers when the Daleks first appeared (1963-ish) and became an instant hit. Half the UK was saying, “Exterminate!” and cracking up.

Thanks for the details, too. We all learn from each other!

F

fldavis07

Participant

Here’s my adorable attempt. LOL