Generative fill and expand, regarding the monthly usage limit

[steveisa054]

Once I finally dared upgrade my PS version and try out the generative fill and generative expand features, I fell in love with this. It is just so perfect for what I do, and my editing workflow. I take photos of indoor dance events without flash. I do not take these photos for the sake of the event organizers, but as a way to make artful images, where I capture the moods, emotions and connective interactions on the dance floor. The dance floor is usually crowded, and I often have distractions in the background that I would rather remove and replace with something less distracting. Or, at the time of taking the shot, a body part of a nearby dancer comes into my frame, covering up a portion of my intended subject. Or, since I am shooting moving targets, there is a need to expand the image on one or more sides to improve the overall composition of the photo.

The new generative fill and expand is so perfect for this. I can now do what would have taken a great deal of time before, or in some cases would not even have been possible. Think about changing the background behind the subject's hair that is flying up due to spinning motion. The background can be seen through the hair, also the background lighting and colors. But the generative fill can handle this, by also recreating the hair that I need also to replace in this case (I just may need to keep generating until I get the look that I want).

I was in such heaven! I thought, what a fantastic advance for photographic editing. Mind, I am not using AI here to create fantasy images which are a bit far from reality. I am using the AI to make possible the editing of background areas or the removal of foreground objects or an expansion of the image canvas to one or more sides.

But then last night my world collapsed on me. I discovered from another's post, that Adobe has introduced a limit to the number of times we can invoke the generative fill and expand. For me with the LR+PS subscription plan, this is a mere 250 "credits" per monthly period. And this is not a large count of times I can use the generative fill and expand. When working on an image, I may need to regenerate an area a number of times before I get what I like. I can easily use up 5 or 10 or more "credits" on a single image.

I am hoping that Adobe will increase the number of monthly credits we have allotted to us, or drop the limitation completely, or come up with a more dynamic way of allotting us these credits. For example, I have had the subscription plan without interruption for years now, how about increasing the number of credits based on this? I am not hoping for a significant increase in my monthly subscription price to allow me more credits per month, however, for obvious cost reasons.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Just for your awareness, if you run out of credits Generative Fill does not stop working. See here : https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/firefly/using/generative-credits-faq.html#credits-renew

which states that if credits run out  : 'Creative Cloud and Adobe Stock paid users can keep taking generative AI actions but using generative AI features to create vector graphics or standard-resolution images* may be slower.'

Also to quote from here https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/firefly/using/generative-credits.html

'Selecting an action such as Generate, Load More, or Refresh can generate multiple results. However, credit consumption isn't determined by the number of generated results but rather by how many times you select an action. For example, selecting Generate in Generative Fill debits only 1 credit.'

Dave

[steveisa054]

Thank you for that information. I think it is all a bit confusing at the moment. I based my post on a post that I saw where someone was asking why their button for "generate" became greyed out, and the people who posted said it could be because they ran out of credits. But perhaps it was another issue entirely (perhaps a temporary loss of internet connection). It would be good if one can keep going after the credits are gone, but perhaps taking a bit longer.

On the other hand, I find it confusing to understand the cost of a credit. If I click on Generate in generative fill to create some results, I get charged a credit. But this description makes it sound like if within the same generative fill action, e.g the same selection that I am generating a fill for, I click once again to get more results, is this what is meant by "Load More"? In which case obtaining another three results, and then perhaps three more, will not cost me more credits? That would help the situation somewhat if this is the case. I will have to look at it and see what "Load More" and "Refresh" are doing, and how to trigger these.

[David Ayars]

One more suggestion which has helped me avoid running up against Adobe's monthly limits on use of Generative Fill (or Generative Expand) in Photoshop.

For the way you are using Generative Fill, to remove unwanted distractions from images... you can almost always get great results using Photoshop's Remove Tool. This is found in the left-hand column of icons in Photoshop, 8th from the top; the icon looks like a Band-Aid. If you hover over the icon that is 8th from the top and don't see "Remove tool", expand it and select Remove Tool. 

Remove Tool was significantly improved in effectiveness in the last year, if I recall correctly, and it usually zaps any distraction or other unwanted element in a photo and does so far more effectively than Lightroom Classic's Content Aware Remove / Heal / Clone in many cases where the annoyance or distraction is bigger than a small distinct spot or photo element. Remove Tool can be used without limits in Photoshop. So try it first. If Remove Tool misses despite a few tries, then go to Generative Fill, which can do a better job of distraction removal in most of those cases.