Adobe Is Building A Camera App Specially For Serious Photographers

After making photo editing simple for the masses, Adobe is looking the other way and is now working on a camera app built for more serious photographers who enjoy taking the slower route for better photos.

Adobe’s Vice President Marc Levoy, who joined the company two years ago after heading the Google Pixel camera team, is now leading this project. He believes that, beyond Adobe’s focus on accessible editing, there’s a whole world of computational photography options for the pros—the ones trained to handle traditional settings like aperture, shutter speed, and autofocus.

CNET, which interviewed Levoy and broke the news, says the new app will combine the creative controls desired by serious photographers with the capabilities of smartphone technology.

Levoy, who was formerly a researcher at Stanford University as well, invented the term “computational photography.” He says Google turned down his suggestion to create a feature that “would require more than a single button press.” Luckily, Adobe has a different vision and sees that there’s something for the photographers who prefer to interact with their cameras and are more conscientious about telling a story through the lens.

While there’s little doubt that the creative technology giant can fill this gap, there’s also the risk that the final product may not be up to par for keen-eyed professionals, who’d be more frustrated if the app’s AI-enhanced results are occasionally glitchy.

The yet-to-be-named app’s features remain a mystery, though Levoy admits that Adobe is working on an option to delete reflections from photos captured through windows.

Another feature that could be added is “relighting,” where harsh shadows can be removed by harnessing the iPhone’s LiDAR depth sensor. Adobe is also looking to generate images à la DALL-E, as well as develop new techniques for “superresolution” to turn photos into higher-resolution images.

The company could also roll out a feature to adapt the color of photos to people’s screens, in addition to the ability to merge the best elements of several photos into one shot.

Adobe is still in the very early stages for this software, and it intends to launch it in a year or two.

[via PetaPixel and CNET, cover photo 205781356 © Seemanta Dutta | Dreamstime.com]