Photoshop's controversial new AI tool is dividing opinion

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Does Relight transform photo retouching.... or turn people into video game characters?

Adobe Photoshop Relight tool
(Image credit: Adobe)

Adobe's just dropped a new AI tool in Photoshop, and it's turning out to be almost as controversial as Nvidia's DLSS 5. Relight is a Generative AI feature added to the desktop version of Photoshop beta that lets you add new interactive, non-destructive lights to an image.

The idea is that you can relight a photoshoot after the event. You can adjust the position of artificial light sources and vary their intensity, colour and amount of diffusion, viewing the results in real time.

Is it a game changer that's going to put light makers out of business and transform retouching... or does it make the subjects of photos look like video game graphics made in Unreal Engine 5?

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Photoshop's Relight removes the existing lighting from an image and then creates its own using generative AI. You can add up to three artificial light sources and control them individually. Turn them all off, and you have the remaining ambient or original light. Turning each one on or off enables or disables its contribution, just like turning on or off a real light.

People have been sharing early experiments with the tool on social media, and they've been generating some mixed reactions. Some think Relight has the potential to eliminate manual light painting, or at least provide a very good base to start with, massively speeding up the process.

Others aren't impressed with the soft, unnatural-looking results, with smoothed textures seeming to create a look more akin to that of a 3D avatar than a realistically lit portrait. Like other AI editing tools, including Tinder's, Relight also seems to suffer from a tendency to make unintended changes a person's appearance.

That's generating the kind of debate we've seen over Nvidia's DLSS 5 – is it actually generating new art rather than enhancing the original image?

Relight's unnatural look could perhaps be toned down if you use it as an adjustment layer and manually blend the results into the image to bring back some of the original texture. We should also remember that Relight has only just been released in beta. It will presumably be improved before full release.

How to use Relight in Photoshop

To use Relight in Photoshop, make sure you've updated to the later Beta Build (Version: 27.10.0 202600802.m.3625). With an image open, go to the Layer menu > New Relight layer.

A default white light will be added bang in the centre of the image. You can click and drag it around the canvas inside or outside the image. A 'Relight Layer' is created in the Layer Panel, leaving the original pixels untouched

You can select the circle light icon on the new Relight Contextual Task Bar or Properties panel to adjust the light properties. You can delete lights and/or turn their visibility off using the eye icon and add more lights with the 'Add lights' button. When finished updating, select 'Done' to generate the final relight result at the full input image resolution.

Easy now, the Relight feature costs 30 credits each time the Done button is pressed!

Joe Foley
Joe Foley
Freelance journalist and editor

Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.

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