This was a pleasant surprise while I browsed the BBC Tech news this morning. It's a four minute video with the the focus on AI in Content Creation as seen and led by Adobe, and telling us this was a theme at MAX this year. I liked the lady at the end who when asked if AI was going to put creatives out of a job, was just a tiny bit hesitant before she said 'Nooooooo..... well probably not... Ermmmm... excuse me, I need to go find another job'. 
AI takes centre stage in new Adobe tools - BBC News
I can't help but still feel a bit cynical about what I see as a relelentless pushing of Adobe Stock as a revenue stream. It was the same last year. So many of the Sneaks and tools recently introduced, make easier and easier to use Stock images, which you obviously then have to pay for. A single image can cost you the same as a month's subscription to the Photoshop/Lightroom Photography plan, so Stock is going to be a huge revenue earner if Adobe manages to get us all hooked.
On a different note, if you are subscribed to Jim's ProDesignTools newsletter you'll have seen that he already has his list of content from MAX available. I didn't go to MAX this year, so I'd be interested to hear what those that did go think are the 'must see' videos? I can see a serious dent in my productivity today because there is just no way I can resist looking through it all. Well maybe just the Sneak Peaks... ummm... and just aone or two more... Bugger, that's today gone.
Free! 140 Hours of Training and Tutorials from Adobe MAX 2017 | ProDesignTools
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I've only had time to get to Project Deep Fill so far, but some cool new stuff. Right from the first video though 'Scene Stitch' is a variation on Content Aware Fill that uses.... wait for it.... Adobe Stock images to fill the gaps instead of using pixels from the same image. It does a great job, but if it had cost me $10 every time I've used CAF over the last few years, it would have come to some money. Just saying here.
And what's up with Paul Trani? He looks like he either forgot to go to the toilet before going on stage, or they gave him a heated chair to sit on for a joke. He really didn't look like he was enjoying himself. And he still had another six Sneaks to suffer through at the point I had to stop and get on with some work. I'm thinking that if I go straight to the last video 'Project Sidewinder' Paul will have either spontaniously combusted, or wet his pants. 
That's disappointing news about extract shading. It would have been one of those genuinely useful features that would be difficult to do manually. You could have used the shading map for displacement maps, and it would be useful for compositing where you are fixing things like clothing that was hidden in the original photograph. . OK we can paint it on a new layer, blur it and set to Multiply, but it can be tricky doing this convincingly. I can see me spending some time just studying the wrinkles in worn shirts to see how the folds tend to show.
The push on revenue earning features associated with Adobe Stock and TypeKit has been evident for the last two years or so. To be fair, the features are clever and useful, like searching with crudely drawn sketches, but when every search result has a price tag, it becomes hard not to be cynical. After watching the Sneaks I next went to 'I wish I had known that. Photoshop Power Shortcuts for Designers'. (BTW I think there was a mix up with rooms, and nothing happens for the first ten minutes or so). Anyway, Jesús speaks about his involvement in the Lost Masterpieces project from last year. This screenshot shows _some_ on the Adobe Stock images he used to create his Masterpiece composite. I'm totally guessing here, but would a $1000 cover that lot?
So truth be told, I am a little disappointed in the direction the CC apps have taken in the last couple of major updates. Adobe's Board of Directors might benefit from playing that old computer game Sim City, where you have to 'strike a balance' to avoid your 'citizens' deciding enough is enough and resorting to riots. Just saying Adobe. With >9,000,000 Creative Cloud subscribers it's not like they are short of income.
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