Just over a year after successfully launching Firefly, Adobe brings the AI generator’s core features to the Adobe Express app. From text effects to animations, you’re able to do plenty in a short amount of time. Here’s what’s new and how everything works.

1Text Effects

Text Effects was the first Firefly tool I tried in the Adobe Express app. After selectingText effectson the homepage, I typed “waves in the sea” for my style and tappedGenerate—the results it gave me were what I expected. You can change the text itself by selecting what’s there and typing everything you wish to add.

It’s easy to make commonmistakes when using generative AItools, like being too vague. So if you have issues getting what you want, try giving the tool more specific prompts.

2Text to Image

Adobe Firefly is one of thebest AI art generators for photorealistic results, and its text to image feature is now available in Adobe Express—you’ll find it on the homepage. I gave the following prompt:

“A cow on a farm in the American Midwest eating grass on a sunny day”

I wasn’t happy with the initial set of results for various reasons. First, each image didn’t look like what I would classify as a photo. There were also some problems with a few results, such as some cows missing ears, and it looks very obvious that they weren’t eating grass.

I then tried a second and more specific prompt:

“A photorealistic wide-angle picture of brown cows eating grass on a sunny day”

I actually felt that these pictures were even less realistic than the first version. As you can see from the results below, they look more like drawings.

So, I tried for a third time with a more specific prompt:

A photographic wide-angle picture of brown cows eating grass on a sunny day

This time, I got a better outcome. If you want to create photographic-style pictures with the Firefly text-to-image feature in Adobe Express, I’d recommend using “photographic” in your prompt.

3Text to Template

If you’re looking tocreate content for social media, templates are a great way to minimize the time you spend. The Text to Template feature in Adobe Express lets you easily make something from scratch, and I wanted to test it for an Instagram Story. Here’s the prompt I gave:

“A 16:9 Instagram Story in a minimalist Nordic design, with four image sections, that I will use for an Instagram Story about a week-long trip to Iceland

At the time of writing in April 2024, Adobe Express doesn’t have an Instagram Story resizer for Text to Template. So, I had to use Poster instead.

To be honest, I wasn’t too happy with the results (I tried multiple times, but still didn’t get the number of images I wanted). While this feature works for simple designs and will likely get better in the future, I much prefercreating Instagram Stories with Canva. It allows you to get the specific dimensions you want and choose from many more templates.

4Generative Fill

Next, I tested Adobe Express’s Generative Fill features. After uploading an image, I changed the Brush size and asked Adobe Express to generate new images. The results were quite reasonable, but I’d actually recommend using this tool on the computer app instead for replacing skies and similar things. I had much more success doing that.

You can also choose to create new pictures if none of the initial results appeal to you. The app recommends drawing both what you want to change and the surrounding areas, but be mindful if you’re drawing over people, otherwise, you could receive undesirable results with their hair and such.

5Video Captions

Adobe Express also uses Firefly’s AI to caption videos, and I found that this tool was quite accurate. You have to upload files shorter than five minutes long and up to 1GB in size. It’s also possible to change the language; it’s set to US English by default.

Processing times were longer on my smartphone than they were when on the desktop app. Once the tool has analyzed your video, you can edit the caption text and choose different text styles. Adobe Express also has an option that lets you customize colors, making it a handy tool for authentic short-form videos.

You may also want to use otherapps to automatically add captions to social media videos.

6Create Animations From Audio

Besides captioning your own videos, Adobe Express’s Firefly features also let you create animations from audio. You first have to select your own character and can choose from people, animals, and numerous other categories. After recording your voice, Adobe Express will perform actions like lip-syncing and head movements.

While it only took my video a few seconds to process, it wasn’t very long. If you’ve recorded more audio, expect longer processing times. I was pretty satisfied with the animation, and everything was well-synced. If you need to use this tool for bigger projects, I’d recommend scripting your audio and taking the time to record everything properly.

Download:Adobe Express foriOS|Android(Free, in-app purchases available)

Adobe Express is a helpful tool for quickly creating projects to share online, and its list of Firefly features can help you step up your game even further. The video tools were particularly impressive when I tried them, but you may need to be more specific with your prompts for images. Give these tools a go and see how they work for you.