Steve here from Photoshop Essentials. In this
video, we’ll look at a great new feature in Adobe Firefly called Structure Reference that lets
you control the structure and composition of your Firefly-generated images by using an existing
image as a reference. And we’ll combine it with a similar feature called Style Reference where you
can take an existing image and match its visual style. To use these features, we need to head over
to the Firefly website at firefly.adobe.com. Then sign in to your Adobe account. Once you’re
signed in, scroll down the page and select the text to image module. And here you’ll find
images created by other Firefly users that you can use for inspiration. When you hover over an
image, you’ll see the prompt that was used to create it. Or you can enter your own prompt. Now
I want something that looks like it’s from an old science fiction movie. So for my prompt, I’ll
enter “An astronaut wearing a retro spacesuit, posing in front of a vintage rocket ship”. And
then I’ll click Generate. Firefly is going to generate four initial results based solely on your
prompt, which means you’ll get what you get. And what I got was, well, at least the basic idea.
There is an astronaut and some sort of rocket ship. You can click the thumbnails below the
images to cycle through them. Or a better way is to click on an image to view it on its own
and then scroll through them using the arrows, or the arrow keys on your keyboard. Then
click the Close button to return to the main screen. Now if typing a prompt was all
we could do, then if I wanted better results, I would need to start editing my prompt and make
it much more descriptive. But Firefly just got a brand new feature called Structure Reference.
You’ll find it in the column on the left. Structure Reference lets you control the structure
or the composition of the generated image by using an existing image as a reference. Firefly can look
at the outlines and the depth in the reference image and match them to the new image. To upload
a reference image, click the Upload image button. You could also click Browse Gallery to choose one
of the images included with Firefly. But I’m going to upload my own. Then navigate to the image you
want to use as the reference. I’ll use this image because I want my astronaut to match the same
location, size and pose as the man in this photo. I’ll select it and click Open. Firefly will ask
you to confirm that you have the rights to use the image. Assuming you do, click Continue. And once
it’s uploaded, the image appears as the reference thumbnail. You’ll also see a Structure Reference
tag in the Prompt area along the bottom. Notice in the Structure settings that there’s a slider
for the strength. It controls how closely Firefly should match the reference image. It looks like
a slider but there’s really only three settings, Low, Medium and High. I’ll set it to High.
Then click Generate again. And this time, all four results match the same composition as my
reference image. The astronauts are all roughly the same size, in the same location and in the
same pose. Now one thing I forgot to do was change the aspect ratio, which I can do up here in the
General Settings. By default it’s set to Square but I’ll change it to Landscape. And notice that
Firefly is now using the Firefly Image 2 model which is a big improvement both for image quality
and resolution. I’m also going to set my Content Type to Photo. By default it’s set to Auto so
Firefly will choose between a photo realistic image or an illustration depending on your prompt.
But I want photo realistic so I’ll choose Photo. Then with my aspect ratio set to Landscape, I’ll
click Generate again. And we get four new results, this time in Landscape mode and all sharing that
same composition as my reference image. So far so good. I have the basic composition I’m looking
for. But what I don’t have is the visual style, that retro science fiction look. But we can
use another feature in Firefly called Style Reference to fix that. I’ll scroll down in the
column on the left to get to the Styles section. Style Reference also lets you upload an existing
image to use as a reference. But this time Firefly will match the colors, the lighting, the mood or
theme, and basically everything about the overall look of the reference image. Again you could
choose Browse Gallery and then choose one of the images included with Firefly. But I’ll upload
my own. Navigate to the image you want to use and select it. I found this retro-futuristic
image on Adobe Stock that should work great. It has the exact colors and art style I’m
looking for. Now the image will be used strictly for its visual style so the composition
doesn’t matter. I’ll select it and click Open. And once again the image appears as the
reference thumbnail. And a Style reference tag appears in the Prompt area. So now we’re
using one image for the visual style and another image for the structure or composition.
I also have a Photo tag because I chose Photo as my Content Type. Before I click Generate,
notice that the Styles section has two sliders, one for Visual Intensity and one for Strength.
Visual intensity controls how detailed or dramatic or complex the original generated image should
look (before the style from your reference image is applied). You can drag the slider to the
left for a more subtle version or to the right for a more intense look. I’ll leave it set to the
middle for now. And Strength controls how closely the style of the new image and the reference image
should match. It also controls the strength of any effects you may have added, which I’m not using
here. I’ll leave both sliders set to the defaults and click Generate. So what we’re looking for
is if Firefly can match basically the art style of that reference image. And sure enough, it
does a really great job. We still have the composition from the Structure Reference image,
and now we’ve added the colors, the lighting and that whole science fiction theme of the Style
Reference image. If we look closely though, Firefly can still have trouble with hands, even
with the latest model 2 version. But overall, I think the results look really good. But could they
be even better? Let’s try one more time, but this time I’m going to drag the Visual Intensity slider
all the way to the right so we get a more detailed and dramatic image. And I’ll increase the Strength
to High so Firefly will match the style even more. Then I’ll click Generate. And this time, I think
the results look amazing. The images are more detailed, and they perfectly match the art style
of my reference image. Yet they all still share that same composition, the same pose, as the image
I’m using for my Structure Reference. So there we have it! That’s how to go from random results like
this to this and then this using the new Structure Reference and Style Reference in Adobe Firefly.
If you enjoyed this video, don’t forget to hit the Like button and subscribe to my channel for more
Firefly and Photoshop tutorials. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.
I’m Steve Patterson from Photoshop Essentials.