Adobe has made a major overhaul to its experimental camera application for iPhone. The company has integrated artificial intelligence directly into Project Indigo, its photography app, with a suite of tools known as AI Playground that promises to help you both edit photos and improve your photographic technique. Best of all, for now it's completely free.

Four AI functions to take better photos

According to hipertextual.com, AI Playground is organised around four distinct sections. The first is Object Editing, which lets you remove unwanted elements from a scene: people, cars, signs or any distraction. You can also blur the background to simulate shallow depth of field, something that would normally require a quality lens on a physical camera.

The second section, called Styles, transforms your photographs by applying artistic techniques. You can turn a regular photo into a 2D sketch, give it a watercolour finish or any other effect that mimics traditional art techniques. The big advantage is that it applies with a single tap, with no need to navigate complex menus.

A photography critic in your pocket

What's truly novel about AI Playground is the feature known as Photography Guide. This tool acts as a critic that analyses your photos and offers concrete suggestions to improve them or, if you prefer, to retake the shot. It's similar to what Gemini or ChatGPT do when you upload a document and ask for a review: the AI examines your work and proposes specific improvements.

Finally there's Custom Editing, perhaps the most powerful function. It lets you make very precise changes through text instructions or voice commands. You can relocate objects in the photo, modify the direction of light or make adjustments that would be difficult in a conventional editor.

Google engine, but with HDR protection

Behind all these features is Nano Banana, Google's image generation model that Adobe has chosen as the main brain of AI Playground. Although in the future it could be complemented by Adobe's own Firefly models for other tasks.

An important technical detail: standard image generation models only support SDR (standard dynamic range). If you capture a photo in HDR with Project Indigo, the result would lose intensity when processed. To prevent this, Adobe has developed its own model that reconstructs the original HDR using the photo as reference, maintaining full quality.

How to access and what comes next

If you're already a Project Indigo user, you need to update to version 1.1. Adobe has clarified that only a small percentage of users will have free access for a few weeks while it gathers data on how the new features are used. Once in, you just have to take a photo with the app and press the star-shaped button at the bottom of the screen.

Important: AI Playground only works with photos taken from the app itself. If you import an image from another source, that button will appear greyed out and you won't be able to use it.

For now it's free, but Adobe has already hinted that if the feature gains popularity among users, it will launch a paid version. For the moment, it's a good opportunity to test how far AI can go in photo editing without having to pay anything. Will you give it a try?