Photoshop is now free in ChatGPT (kind of)

While Adobe's been investing heavily in its own generative AI tools, it's also taken a change in direction this year. It began incorporating third-party AI models into Firefly Boards and Photoshop. Now it's launched another first, making Photoshop available in ChatGPT – kind of.

The move marks massive change for Adobe since it's the first time it's made access to Photoshop available in a third-party product – and for free too. The focus is on simplicity and ease of access, allowing anyone to edit images without leaving ChatGPT. Functionality is pretty limited, but, yes, you can ask it to 'make your image pop'.

Some may say Photoshop in ChatGPT is Photoshop in name alone. It feels like a simple mobile editing app, lacking the precision and the advanced layering, masking and brush tools of the desktop software.

Users of OpenAI's chatbot can add effects like Glitch and Glow, adjust brightness and contrast or edit specific parts of an image using a combination of text prompts. Adobe says there should also be a slider to adjust the intensity of any effect.

Adobe's also launched Adobe Express for ChatGPT, which includes the app's design library and allows templates to be customised and designs to be animated in the chat. There's also Acrobat for ChatGPT to allow PDF editing.

Why's Adobe doing this? Well, ChatGPT reports having over 800 million weekly users, many of whom may be new to Adobe, so this seems like another part of Adobe's move to broaden its user base beyond professional artists and designers.

The aim seems to be to help the software retain its household name status at a time when the future of creative software is being transformed by AI tools. The risk is that this could also waterdown the Photoshop name by associating it with tools that aren't designed to produce professional-quality work.

According to Adobe, Adobe apps for ChatGPT build on the company’s recent innovation in agentic AI, which have seen it develop an AI assistant for Photoshop. This, it says, will make creativity more accessible for everyone.

The move follows Canva's decision to make Affinity free at the end of October. Some found that move puzzling from a business point of view, but the free access to Affinity may win it more custom from disgruntled Adobe users while serving as an advert of Canva's own AI tools, which require a subscription.

How to use Photoshop in ChatGPT?

Accessing Adobe’s apps in ChatGPT requires you to upload an image to the chatbot and then type the name of the app followed by an instruction.

For example, to blur the background of an image with Photoshop in ChatGPT, you could type: “Adobe Photoshop, blur the background of this image.”

ChatGPT should automatically use the Photoshop integration and use contextual understanding to guide you through the action. After applying each adjustment or effect, you should be able to click on the selection to change the intensity using sliders.

You'll need to have a ChatGPT account. While the new tools are available with the ChatGPT free plan, the generations can be quite slow. Image generations are faster with ChatGPT plus.

Also see Adobe's Creative Cloud plans below.