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Inspiring
May 29, 2025

I don't think this is going in the rigbt direction....

  • May 29, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 189 views

I'm bringing to discussion an issue that was probably already discussed somewhere, and its about how Firefly is lagging hard behind other Text to Image Generators. In this case, ChatGPT.
Firefly and Adobe are my preferred work tools. I am paying to use them and I'm always hopeful that the tech evolves in the right direction. That the way the AI engine eats and chews the prompts is effective enough that I don't have to spend an awful amount of time refining prompts to get satisfactory results.
Firefly is armed with a vast array of style options and settings, and along with the prompt refining, it should do the trick in getting great results with little effort, but I keep getting bad results.
At the same time, I go into ChatGPT, and with a single prompt, no extra settings and presets, I get what I want at first try. I'm not paying for ChatGPT so I have a very limited daily amount of images I can generate.
Case in point, I'll give you the following example, from a series of personal things I've been goofing around in my spare free time.
With ChatGPT, and using the following prompt:
"can I have a vintage, pulp comic style illustration of a woman cutting her husband's hair.
the man is sitting on a chair, and the woman behind him, cutting his hair with a scissor. the hair of the husband is all messed up, lots of bald spots and weird cuts, because she is a terrible hair dresser.
the woman is clearly happy and having a great time cutting his hair, but the man looks miserable because his hair is all messed up.
it has to have that vintage style illustration look, vertical format."
The immediate result was this:
Without skipping a beat, the engine gave EXACTLY what I was looking for. I didn't have to refine the prompt, give examples or references, no use of presets or settings. Just the response to the prompt and it nailed it. The only thing I had to edit was remove the extra finger holding the scissors.

Now... Using the EXACT SAME PROMPT on Firefly, with no settings other than using the Portrait format, this is one of the results (the others are equally bad):

So. Not only the style and the look do not match in any way what is described in the prompt. The image itself, as usual is ridden with bizarre artifacts, distorted elements and outright weird stuff going on.
None of the results was even remotely satisfactory, and this frustrates me beyond reason.

I know these things use different learning models, but Adobe is supposed to be a tool for artists and designers who usually have a pretty good idea of what they are looking for. I try to make my prompts as specific as possible, and still I stumble in results that are frankly embarassing from a provider such as Adobe.

There are situations where Firefly outright ignores parts of the prompt that are well described. It simply ignores them and gives me back stuff that is not even in the prompt. This is beyond baffling...

I keep reporting bad results when I get them. I've come in here several times reporting bugs and trying to understand why Adobe is lagging so much behind other tools, when this was supposed to be a top of the shelf, state of the art product.

Sorry for the rant. But I needed to get this out there.

4 replies

April 3, 2026

Hey ​@DaddyDoom 
In cases like this, I look at what is available in Adobe Stock. FF is commercially safe. Whereas the other models may not hold the same standard.

FF draws it inspiration from Adobe Stock. 
Cheers

Nate

DaddyDoomAuthor
Inspiring
April 3, 2026

Considering how Adobe is now charging a small fortune in credits PER GENERATION in other models than FF, I had to find solutions and workarounds that do not involve Adobe.
They have been changing the rules unilaterally and randomly and we, as paying users are just supposed to accept these as a natural thing.
As someone said below, yes, each generation should be heavily watermarked until a download is made, and then yes, charge the credits. Not taking into consideration that prompts need refinement until a satisfactory result is achieved, its just wasting credits away.
Plus, to this day, since I originally posted this, FF hasn’t improved much, it still outright ignores entire segments of the prompt whereas Nanobanana, Gemini or GPT usually get it right from the start and only need a couple of tweaks.
As for Adobe Stock, I do work with it, but some stuff I need is really specific and I surely wont find it there.
Thanks for the reply though.

April 3, 2026

Hey ​@DaddyDoom 

Which rules have been randomly changing? 
If you have Qs or want to learn more about FF join the Adobe Live on YouTube or Adobe Firefly on Discord Mon to Thurs w Shawn and Jack. They answer Qs and help trouble shoot generation problems.

Adobe Firefly may not give you one and done. Nor should it. 
Adobe is a creative platform with many many apps to further enhance and develop your projects: Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe Express, and Lightroom just to name a few.

I don’t come in to FF expecting it to give me a one and done image. Rather I see it as a tool to assist with developing a creative asset. A creative asset that I can composite. 

Is Adobe behind??? or not? Within the Creative Cloud app I can upload my asset in almost any App and make necessary changes. The creative suite provides so many options to enhance. Creative apps have FF and other models built in. 

Again, I don’t see any image as one and done.

Besides that even if I just use Firefly and the other models… there are many options to upload and create/ manipulate an image or video.

 Cheers

Nate

Kevin Stohlmeyer
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 2, 2026

Have you tried using the available third-party models via the Firefly site? GPT Image is one of the options. So while Firefly proper may be behind or lacking, the availability of these additional models is a good solution for moving forward. 

ThomasOlsen
Participant
April 2, 2026

There should be a way to have a watermark on the image until it is APPROVED and then get charged for the credits. You can use up all credits just getting ONE right!

Peru Bob
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 2, 2026

@ThomasOlsen 

Please post that in the Feature Requests forum.

https://community.adobe.com/p/feature-requests

Kartika Rawat
Community Manager
Community Manager
May 29, 2025

Hi DaddyDoom!

Thanks for sharing your experience—we hear your frustration, and your feedback is incredibly valuable. Sorry to hear that Firefly isn't meeting your expectations right now. We'll share your feedback with the product team; your reports help guide those improvements. We appreciate you taking the time to share them. 

Select the report icon to provide feedback for improvement.

 

 

Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks again,

KR