Item: Adobe Firefly
Rating: 8
Author: Daniel Leighton

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Firefly

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Adobe Firefly to produce images for sale on Adobe Stock and other stock sites. I use any of the various models available, in addition to a number of the partner models, especially Gemini 2.5 and Gemini 3. I have also used Adobe Firefly to produce a handful of videos that I eventually uploaded to Adobe Stock, each of which met Adobe's quality standards.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Works particularly well within Photoshop with Generative Fill and Expand.
Low cost relative to the type of one's Adobe Cloud subscription.
The advantage of Adobe Firefly's production of multiple results compared to partner models, though with the expectation that edits will sometimes be required.
A relatively easy to use user interface.

Cons

Forum posts indicate that individuals new to AI need more clear instruction on how to find tutorials.
Recent forum posts indicate a number of users are experiencing bugs, though it is difficult to tell from their posts if they are using Adobe Firefly correctly, given the sparse details they provide.
Continued efforts to train Adobe Firefly, particularly with photo realistic images and the human anatomy.

Return on Investment

The production of AI can be expensive. As an individual and not part of a team, and in the market of selling stock assets, it is important to keep my costs as low as possible.
The built-in features of Adobe Firefly within Photoshop help keep costs (if any, depending on one's Adobe Cloud subscription) to a minimum.
I personally prefer a payment structure based on generative minutes, rather than credits, but that issue is subject to one's opinion.

Usability

As mentioned previously, forum posts indicate that users new to AI are experiencing difficulties, though they are not providing enough details to determine if the problems are due to inexperience or known (or unknown) bugs. I think it's safe to assume that individuals who have yet to explore AI are doing so only now because they have always been Adobe Cloud customers and Adobe's applications (and Adobe Firefly itself) are featured so prominently through advertising and social media.

Alternatives Considered

Midjourney was the first text to AI program I had experience with, and I've used it successfully for nearly three years. But with the availability of Adobe Firefly and its partner models, it became unnecessary to assume the additional expense. I do occasionally use AI enhancement applications, such as Krea, to give some of my images a little extra "punch" when needed.

Key Insights

Do you think Adobe Firefly delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe Firefly's feature set?

Yes

Did Adobe Firefly live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Adobe Firefly go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe Firefly again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Premiere Pro

Likelihood to Recommend

While Adobe does and should establish policies with regard to censorship of certain types of images and words used in prompts, the restrictions do at times seem arbitrary and random, with little feedback in such cases as to what issues in particular are causing problems. For example, if using a reference image of a child to produce a video is forbidden, it would seem simple enough from an AI point of view to explain the limitation to the user.

Using Adobe Firefly

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	Slow to learn

Easy Tasks

Good results from simple prompts.
Speed

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

A Review of Adobe Firefly