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dacreativegenius
Community Expert
dacreativegeniusCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 12, 2026
Question

Does AI reduce friction or raise expectations?

  • February 12, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 60 views

I like to think AI as a collaborator in my creative process. 

I draw the original sketch design then ask AI for input on rendering art style ideas. Adobe Firefly is a great tool to render different ideas quickly 
Adobe PHotoshop to refine the illustration idea by generating edits plus adjust any extra elements easily. 

This process is a timesaver. Then I go back in and redraw the character in Adobe Fresco to edit the details to match my artstyle. 

I call this process my AI sandwich workflow and it helps me save time and generate within seconds to move on to the next steps. It's like a shortcut! 

Now I can move on to the next steps with my client work whereas before, I had to manually test different art styles and render artwork over and over again until the client saw something that they liked. 

I want to hear about your process and how do you reconcile the newest technologies with your talents in today's new AI world?!

 

Example generated in Firefly

made with Firefly

Generative Expand in Photoshop:

Generative Expand with Adobe Photoshop

Sketch in Adobe Fresco, to give the artwork my flair and style.

Final drawing with Adobe Fresco

Final illustration drawn in Adobe Fresco

Back in Photoshop for Generative Expand! 

4K wallpaper by DTM
portrait mode wallpaper

 

    1 reply

    G
    Gord@APL
    Inspiring
    February 13, 2026

    I’d be curious to see the original sketch that you fed into Firefly because, based on the end result - which is almost entirely different to Firefly’s output except in the approximate pose - I genuinely struggle to see what benefit Firefly actually brought to this image.

     

    Firefly’s output is a cool concept, certainly… but clearly not what you had been aiming for. Your end result is more deliberate in its detail, more focussed in its styling, more vibrant in its colour. It has a creative flair that is wholly absent from Firefly’s output. You’ve even expanded on the secondary elements, creating a background that actually suits the foreground.

      dacreativegenius
      Community Expert
      dacreativegeniusCommunity ExpertAuthor
      Community Expert
      February 13, 2026

      Thank you for the compliment. 
      I like AI to give me some ideas for a starting point. This is one image of many that Firefly generated for me and I picked the one that had the closest idea to what I would draw. But even then, the drawing will be by my hand and the details that I choose, not an exact copy. 

      Maybe a sketch at the start is no necessary, but I still like to think of it as a creative process sandwich. 

        G
        Gord@APL
        Inspiring
        February 16, 2026

        It’s not so much that the initial sketch is unnecessary, as much as it is the Firefly stage seems unnecessary - even moreso now I look at your initial sketch.

         

        I get the idea of taking detail references from the AI output and expanding on them, fitting them into your particular style and making it look more deliberate. Comparing the sketch to Firefly’s image, I can see where you’ve taken an idea - circular lights dotted about, electronic equipment mounted on the chest, etc. - and removed the random junk and excess ‘greebling’ that doesn’t make any sense.

         

        The device panel on the chest now looks as though it’s mounted on a wide cross-strap between the shoulder straps. The backpack is enclosed (for safety?), with the cables between it and the helmet, glove and stylus now having clear implied purpose that just aren’t there in Firefly’s output.

         

        So, I guess, my only question now is how valuable was the AI stage, in practical terms? To me, it seems to provide far too much distraction, but you’ve honed in on the important stuff and produced an image that AI alone could never hope to achieve.

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