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Adobe’s Project Scribbler uses AI to colorize any black and white photo in seconds

Adobe’s research team previewed emerging technology today at Adobe MAX 2017 that may one day make the tedious, but increasingly popular work of colorizing black and white photos obsolete. Project Scribbler is a new initiative powered by Adobe Sensei that can interpret any black and white sketch or photo and accurately apply realistic coloring to it.

In a sneak peak of the software given to 9to5Mac, Adobe Research Scientist Jingwan Lu explained that Project Scribbler is the result of training a neural network to recognize facial features and the most likely possible colors of recognizable objects.

Demoing several different photos and sketches, Lu showed how Scribbler was able to consistently apply not only colors, but shading and even image textures to objects within seconds. By dragging and dropping texture samples onto sketches, designers will be able to quickly iterate designs and test different styles with clients before adding details to their imagery.

As with all Adobe sneak previews, Project Scribbler is a standalone technology demo and not integrated into any current Creative Cloud apps. Adobe’s research team first published a paper in July that outlined the team’s work on the technology behind Scribbler. It’s not hard to imagine how powerful of a tool this product could become in the near future.

Adobe announced a wide range of other applications and features this week in Las Vegas, including significant updates to Lightroom, Creative Cloud updates, a focus on Adobe Sensei, and even audio editing in VR.


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Avatar for Michael Steeber Michael Steeber

Michael is a Creative Editor who covered Apple Retail and design on 9to5Mac. His stories highlighted the work of talented artists, designers, and customers through a unique lens of architecture, creativity, and community.

Contact Michael on Twitter to share Apple Retail, design, and history stories: @MichaelSteeber