AI Generative guidelines violation

[lespardew]

I love the tool to select an area of my picture and use generative AI to fix or enhance it but I hate the inaccurate content restrictions. I am working on illustrating the bible, which is a huge task even with AI to help. Often I find there are problems with hands, feet, and faces. It is great to be able to fix them with the lasso tool and generative AI. The sad truth is that I am constantly being hit with guideline violations that seem to have no basis that I can see or understand. A general guideline violation message is not enough.

For example, Here is a picture I am working on. It is a scene from the bible. 

There are a number of problems with the people in this scene that I'm trying to fix. For some reason, these two heads will not work with any prompt I can think of. I've tried long prompts like "a woman in a biblical scene with a serious expression on her face". I've tried short prompts like "Woman face". No matter what I try, I get the violation pop-up. 

      

No matter what I try to do I get a guideline violation. There is no explanation of what guideline I am violating. I can't figure it out. I am constantly sending feedback on the images I work on but nothing seems to improve. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. At times I feel so frustrated that I am actively looking for an alternative to Photoshop. Has anyone had a clue about how to deal with this roadblock? 

[CMass · Accepted solution]

Hi @lespardew, 

Thank you for taking the time to share feedback on this guideline violation. We've passed it along to the team for review.  We'll reach out if we have any questions. Please continue to share feedback in app when you see any issues.

^CM

[lespardew]

Thanks for listening. It helps to know someone from Adobe is listening. There are a lot of frustrated artists out here.

[Xenohart]

Dude - I am going to take a wild guess and say that adobe has ZERO interest in fixing this. It has become infinitely restrictive, now. I am currently working on a wedding photo with a close-up of the groom putting the wedding ring on his bride's hand, and I cannot get generative AI to do ANYTHING without "guideline violation". I was focused on the hand, but then tried other areas of the photo and get the same problem. What? Why? These are custom, super high-res quality photos my son took for a wedding. He pays for adobe and so do I (although we're both ready to quit [cursing removed]), and he asked me to help see if I could undo the blurring that occurred right at the hands, right where the actual action is.

Unfortunately, due to the lighting, he couldn't take the photo at a high enough speed to capture that and it is one of the MOST important photos.

All I am trying to do is select box the ring and see if I can get generative AI to provide a little clean-up. But - does Adobe build their AI to do ANY augmentation? Nope. That would just be a stupid idea for a photo editing software... *sigh*... all it does is generative. Fine. Except... now it won't even do that cause I get the same guideline violation prompt. I've sent in my complaint with the image. But - this is like... attempt number 56 of sending in a photo... JUST a photo... nothing promsicuous, nothing "oh noes! Art might have something suggestive??!!" (because, why should Adobe work with artists to be artists... that would just be stupid). Every photo I've sent to adobe to complain and every post I make on this forum about it - zero effort from adobe's part because nothing changes. I go back after months and see if the new photoshop updates fixed the previous problem and.... nope. I don't think adobe wants customers anymore. With so much new software out there and the $1500 my son and I are paying annually.... unless adobe wants to just lift the restrictions until they can figure out how to train their AI properly... this is becoming frustratingly useless. imho.

[lespardew]

Hi Xenohart,

I hear you. The Guideline violations are the most frustrating part of my work. Adobe did respond to my post and I even had a meeting with them on this issue. Since that time nothing. No changes to their program and nothing back from them about the issue. I'm glad to hear I am not the only person complaining about it. Adobe has a good tool with their generative AI when it works but to have the door slammed in my face constantly is a real problem for me. I'm definitely on the lookout for something to replace Photoshop as an editing tool and this issue is the primary reason. 

[Xenohart]

Thank you. Every time I post in this forum, the other users all reply: "Why are you posting, adobe never reads it or listens". ***sigh*** ... but this is the only place we really have to communicate with them AND others at the same time and if we never say anything - nothing changes. If enough of us complain and upvote one another, I'd like to think it will help. I just posted in the "ideas" section for photoshop a note about the fact that there are AI filters out there right now that can detect illegal imagery with a 90%+ accuracy rate. So... why adobe is falling behind and over content violating ... no idea? I am involved in AI testing and I have to do some neural prompting entries, so I actually understand this process and while it's not "simple" - Adobe's been around long enough and is big enough for this not to be an issue, imho. If this keeps up, it's only a matter of time before someone uses AI to program a photo shopping tool that surpasses what we have out there and adobe is certainly not showing any interest in competing, especially not with these issues coupled with their software costs. I have enjoyed some of its features and I think it's fair to say that I have certainly gotten at least 60-80% of my money's worth out of it (and that's partially on me, I suppose, for how much I use it vs. what it costs...) - but when it becomes restrictive like this... there's no fixing that. Imagine if Microsoft Office suddenly wouldn't let you write a book because it decided it didn't like the content? That would spur the outrage of a brazillion users and launch Google's Office products into first place overnight (imho). I have been using other AI generators (midjourney, microsoft image AI, open AI, etc.), where I can upload a portion of my photo, like the faces you were showing, to at least get the angle to match my prompt to create a face and I can then bring it back into photoshop, make a few fine adjustments on my own (and sometimes... on RARE occassions... I can make a selection box between the edges of my imported face and the original image (even on separate layers), and the generative AI will blend the two (sadly, it usually just makes a blur)), but this HAS been helpful. So, I will give Adobe its brownie points there. But... then... if I have to use 10 different pieces of software vs. drawing all my own (and I do draw my own a lot) ... then Adobe's entire AI push is futile and they should stick to improving the ease of use for photoshopping (imho). Sorry to have rambled on, but on a side note: at least 7 of the images I have gotten content violations on are Christian. Whether I was working on converting revelations into imagery (which has been a challenge and a half), or working on Christ at Gethemane (all for Sunday lessons, for fun, not trying to create proprietary or special artwork, albeit, quality matters to me in anything I do as I am also a graphics designer), this has repeatedly come up as a violation and it feels like, sadly, that there is an implication, based on dozens of comments I've read on multiple forums, that Adobe is doing this in relationship to the spiritual content (but I cannot say that for certain). The attached image is an example generation of two midjourney assists I used for Christ at Gesthemane with some heavy duty (in progress) post photoshop overlays where, in the end, the errors on hands and arms and robe and plants were not going to be corrected, I was NOT going to get a glowing golden goblet floating above His hands, nor have an angel at His back looking down on Him using ANY AI like I was hoping for (I eventually did my own repairs, added work, and overlays to make it what I wanted. I was able to copy just the edges to a new layer and hid the original layer, and get Adobe to help me expand the image outward a bit with some reasonable quality that only needed minor clean-up), but overall Adobe AI would not do ANY fix for it (fixing hands/arms/ robe etc) as it constantly came up as a content violation, and - that's a SERIOUS limitation that is simply not okay, imho. Cheers!

[lespardew]

I hope this upvoting works. I wish other artists would stand up and be heard about this issue. I have some friends who work at Adobe. Before I give up, I'm going to visit with them and see if I can get them to help us push this issue up the chain. 

I like your images. I can see where the AI helping with the hands and robe would be something you wanted in the image. Imagine trying to do an image of Christ on the cross. I just don't understand why Adobe feels like it has to be the content police. I don't agree with people making vulgar or hateful images, but I don't blame Adobe for that happening. The blame goes to the artist who made the image. Photoshop should be a tool for artistic expression. Their censorship of art just doesn't make sense, especially from an art tool company. 

[Rakesh345280909stm]

90% of anything I try to generate lands up in guidelines violation of late. absolute waste of time. makes me wonder what kind of results is it actually generating, what is the training data? 

[lespardew]

It is good to know that other people are experiencing this issue too. I hope more comments here will bring this issue better attention from Adobe. 

[WILLIAM21960591m0al]

Fat chance of that.....I am sick of paying Adobe through the nose for a product that just does not work.

Every single time I try to generate fill where there is any sign of a human, I get the violation.

I don't understand it, they create the image that causes the violation, not me, so why does it not create an image that does not cause a violation?

Anyway my subscription ends in March, so it's goodbye from me.

[lespardew]

I wonder how many people will have to leave the platform before Adobe gets the message. It is sad Adobe is not more responsive.

[Andrew_Cole0074]

I came across this trying to find info on the same issue.  Trying to replace the inside plain white showing at the bottom of a dress with the pattern from the rest of it and getting either "guidelines" errors or now today it just errors out in general.

[lespardew]

I had that happen to me yesterday too. After I updated Photoshop it seemed to work fine on the general errors but I am still getting guideline errors. 

[Xenohart]

This is beyond incredible.  Even one of my replies to you previously "cursing removed". WHAT? I didn't flipping curse. I am SO tired of this. Adobe has lost their minds. Every "update" is getting worse. They're upcharging all of it. And, this time last year, they were in trouble with the FTC for defrauding their customers, and you can look them up on the BBB and ALL THE SAME complaints are being lodged (so not only are they not listening to us - they don't care what the government says and skirted around the issue, avoided penalties, and have just kept on going). Trustpilot.com, 5,449 reviews - 1 star. Reddit: "What is wrong with the 2025 release": UNIVERSAL acknowledgement that there is ZERO customer service and they are screwing the software (just the last week alone is non stop complaints). And, their chief strategy officer just joined A24 - so the subscription model's probably going to get worse. And, there's already ***** out there writing 2025 articles about the new pricing changes (focusing on the whopping $9.99 a month accounts...) and how it's good and complainers should just shut up... which means Adobe is already working overtime to manipulate the internet and bad feedback on their products. And ... who to blame? Adobe for becoming an abusive monopoly? The FTC for taking the bribes to allow antitrust violations? Or the corporations (like Corel), that sold out to them? Maybe the overpriced software that led everyone to acquire it "less than lawfully" that these companies caused... and then used to skirt US laws (like every other tech company)? The TOP common complaints against Adobe regarding their software include: unintuitive interface, frequent crashes, overly complex subscription model, difficulty cancelling subscriptions, high price point, excessive pop-ups, poor customer service, system resource-heavy applications, and a perceived lack of innovation in recent updates; many users criticize the company for essentially holding a monopoly in the creative software market, allowing them to not prioritize user experience improvements as much as they could, So - nothing useful to contribute except to say  - as soon as there's a replacement - I am definitely out.

[cserw_5603]

To my opinion you guys are to blame because you pay them.

[Xenohart]

On one hand, you're not wrong. On the other - please, provide a solution that allows for as much detailed photo editing capabilities as adobe and is not intrusive, hijacking, or problematic? See, if I didn't require graphics art editing as a solution - I wouldn't be paying adobe. But, there's a rule in the open source software world: It can only be open source as long as the user interface is so completely impossible for anyone to use, that it requires 1000 add-on downloads from users and 10,000 hours of youtube videos just to figure out how to do the most primitive, core task. Why? I don't know. For some reason, when people make open sourcee or alternative software, they always, without fail, make the user interface impossible. That is what screwed me after Autocad's model became too expensive to afford, anymore. I would love to have 6,000 hours to just stop everything I'm doing and try to figure out how to use some other piece of software. But, I don't. Adobe knows this. It's the same reason that Microsoft has not update the functionality of Word in decades. The same lack of intuitive TOCs, bad citing styling, and so on. They don't have to because, like adobe, they lobby the government nd crush the competition. So -what amazing strategy would you suggest for not having to got through this anymore?

[Gene5FBC]

I tried to change the background to "bedroom" and got this instead.

[cserw_5603]

Try and have her dressed with burka, maybe you'll get lucky.

[Xenohart]

funny. not helpful, but funny.

[Xenohart]

Yep - this is a PERFECT example of the kind of nonsense we're all facing. I don't know if you resolved this at all, yet, or if this helps at all: but if you can copy and paste her into a new layer (layer 3), turn off layer 1, then place a blank layer behind her (layer 2) (check that you're not getting the chair with her), and then select the blank area on layer 3, switch back to layer 2, and run it again, it will consider her as part of the photo it's integrating a background into, but may not give you a violation notice (and who knows why it does / does not work arbitrarily this way, nothing adobe is doing is making sense). The other thing I'd do is to do it in sections, like "just" the carpet, then the walls, then insert a bed, and so on. It works about 65% of the time. And - this has become a problem because I work for product companies that need marketing ads that often involve people. Adobe Illustrator has a new feature for templating out marketing products for placement on bottles and boxes (I haven't even had a chance to try, yet) - but that will do me no good if I cannot incorporate some basic graphic design. And, not ONE photographer, even the ultra $10k expensive studios, ever takes a photo that is NOT so problematic that I'm not having to do graphic editing to turn it into something usable. SO frustrating. 😞

[Gene5FBC]

Good lord. All that work !

[Xenohart]

HAHAHA - well, there's probably a photoshop expert out there who knows how to do some fancy, super advanced layer mask trick that could shortcut it all - but that's just my process. Still, worth it if it works while we need a work-around to adobe's tomfoolery! 🙂

[Levi]

I repeatedly get these so called guideline violations. What is wrong with this program? I can understand all of the written guidelines but the interpretation is completely invalid. I would be ashamed to launch such an incomplete program with all of the really awesome AI video generator programs out there. Too bad. I like Adobe. But this really needs some work.

[lespardew]

I just finished a meeting with a contact at Adobe. it was a good conversation and he expressed a willingness to push this issue to the forefront of their awareness. He asked me to send screenshots where I get slammed with a violation that is incorrect. He wants to share them with the development team to try to solve the problem. He is also now aware of this forum thread. If you run into an issue post it here. I'll let him know to use your posts as further evidence to give the development team. 

[Xenohart]

Thanks, glad to hear it. I also submit a complaint the minute the violation occurs - including the image that it happened on. So, they have this in their files. So, I know they have all of my photos that they've blocked me on. 🙂