Adobe MAX 2024 wrapped—key updates for Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign

Adobe MAX 2024 is here, and it’s bigger, bolder, and more mind-blowing than ever! This annual creativity conference is the ultimate playground for designers, artists, and tech lovers, setting the stage for jaw-dropping innovations and game-changing tools. From cutting-edge updates across Adobe’s suite to sneak peeks into the future of creative tech, MAX 2024 delivers everything you need to fuel your creative obsession.

Ready to dive in? Let’s check out the standout moments from Adobe MAX 2024 for three of the most significant creative powerhouses: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

Adobe MAX was big for Photoshop and Illustrator. Last year, we saw updates for generative expand and fill, both intuitive and easy tools that are huge time-savers. This year brought some pretty cool features for Photoshop that are even more user-friendly and intuitive. So, what are the significant updates from Adobe MAX for Adobe Photoshop?

The Remove tool has a big update with the Find Distractions tool, which helps remove people, wires, and cables from an image. These options will look specifically for those little distractions we could do without in a picture. We love a good time-saving tool, and this is one of those. 

This feature brings Adobe Firefly into the new Adobe Photoshop update. You can run multiple prompts to generate images in the background. Then, you can generate multiple variables to get variations based on colors, backgrounds, styles, etc. 

The new Adobe Photoshop update helps streamline the workflow of adjustment layers, masking, and brushes. Now, we have a single step that covers it all. You can choose the adjustment option, then choose the object or brush, and then create the adjustment layer. It shows up like a normal layer, so it’s easy to change the color, move it, etc. 

Adobe Illustrator also received a major update at Adobe MAX 2024. It is now faster and allows you to relink missing files, similar to Photoshop. Let’s examine some other awesome updates.

Image trace has significantly improved and is probably one of the most used tools when we don’t have vectors. If you like sketching, this tool helps trace around your designs and make them scalable. Now, you can capture and digitize designs more accurately with the improved Enhanced Image Trace. Images are crisper and cleaner; now, you can use gradients to smooth things out, which are editable, too! 

Remember when you wanted to align objects to a circle and had to use the Rotate tool and hope for the best? Well, now there’s an easier way to do that with the Object on Path tool. With just a few simple clicks, you can perfectly align objects. This is particularly useful if you like creating patterns.

If you encounter a roadblock or are short on time, the Generative Shape Fill tool will fill a specific shape with a fantastic idea that matches your work style. The tool will grab colors and basic shapes as samples to match your working style. You can type out a prompt and generate ideas without leaving the app.

Brand designers will find this improvement particularly useful. Traditionally, creating prototypes and mockups to show how a brand can look in physical objects was time-consuming. The Mockup tool was introduced a few months ago and is now out of beta. It significantly improves wrapping around edges and other user experience updates that can speed up your workflow.

There were some exciting announcements around InDesign at Adobe MAX 2024. We’ve seen a big push on software integrating generative AI and many enhancements to simplify the design workflow.

Watch this quick video for the latest InDesign updates:

Adobe has been releasing updates for InDesign for a few months. These new updates support a better use of images, a seamless workflow, and, if you’re working more with math, the integration of MathML support. Let’s look at some of the new features of Adobe InDesign!

We’ve all run into this problem: we receive an image, and it’s just too small to fit where we want it to go. So, we have to change the whole layout or manually extend the background in Photoshop, which could take some time. With the Generative Expand tool, you don’t have to leave InDesign; you’ll be able to fill in missing areas to resize images. The tool analyzes the image and extends it seamlessly. If you want to tweak further, you can open the newly generated image in Photoshop to work on the details.

This is another problem many designers have run into. You have an image, but it isn’t perfect. It would be if the angle were slightly higher and the lighting marginally brighter. That isn’t a problem anymore. Like the new Project Concept, the Text to Image tool now has an advanced option. You can, of course, type out what you need, but the Advanced option also lets you add a reference image and style. The results are stored in the GenAI Assets folder.

If you work primarily in editorial design, you’ll know that rounds of changes can go on forever. Sharing documents through email occupies so much space; now, there’s a better way. With Adobe Express, you can create a collaborative file, perfect if you’re working with a team of designers or if you’re working with people around the globe.

Brand consistency is essential, and this tool is handy for those of us who develop brand assets and templates and want clients to edit content as quickly as possible without compromising the quality of the design work.

While Adobe InDesign has always been the go-to for text-heavy layouts, math expressions still needed to be manually added. MathML is short for Mathematical Markup Language and uses XML tags to describe mathematical structures. Now, with the MathML panel in InDesign, you can add math expressions to your layout as an SVG, with the ability to choose different fonts and colors.

As many people start embracing accessibility as a standard feature on their websites, HTML5 ensures compatibility and support for interactive content across different platforms. HTML (legacy) was limited compared to HTML5, which lets you create a one-to-one copy of the InDesign file but as HTML5. Any interactive feature in the InDesign document, like hovering over text or creating appearing and disappearing text, can now be exported as HTML5.

This new Adobe InDesign update aims to simplify your workflow by suggesting the next steps in your design process. The Contextual Task Bar could be helpful if you work on editorial design, especially in magazines with multiple issues in a year. That is also the case if you design pamphlets in a specific way. For instance, you can use it to add columns, add images, use the Type Tool, etc.

Hiding spreads now works the same way as hiding layers. This Adobe InDesign update will benefit presentations if you want to hide a slide quickly. Hiding spreads on the Pages panel can be helpful if you’re designing a large magazine and need to hide articles that have already been approved.

Adobe Firefly launched last year as Adobe’s generative AI model, and designers have embraced creating billions of images. Firefly already exists in other Adobe products, like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You can create high-quality images from prompts and variables directly in the applications and add specific elements to an image. And now they’ve made the transition into video.

Adobe Firefly allows you to use prompts and transform them into video clips, and Premiere Pro (beta) now will enable you to extend audio clips. These are some big updates for Adobe Firefly!

With social media’s increasing speed, Adobe had to adapt. Adobe Express is a cloud-based tool that allows people to create content from templates. Growing brands and solopreneurs are key here as they want to expand and promote their businesses. You can bring Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign files into Adobe Express. There, you can resize, animate, recolor, add sound effects, rewrite copy, translate, and even control templates.

You can also use shared calendars within the app, and soon, it will integrate with Slack, HubSpot, and Webflow. You can do it all from just a single app!

Designers want the flexibility to create in 3D, but learning the tools takes time. You can create 3D-looking artwork in Illustrator, but to render multiple views means you have to make them from scratch. The newly developed Project Neo is a web-based 3D illustration tool specifically for graphic designers who are used to working in 2D.

While this is a web tool, the look resembles Adobe Illustrator. Some of the features announced at Adobe MAX 2024, like rounding corners and resizing shapes, also work exactly like in Illustrator. Pull in for rounded corners and out for pointy corners. Copy and paste everyone’s favorite, like in any other Adobe product.

In addition, you can swap between filters to make the 3D object look realistic, pixelated, or appear as vector art, which gives an outline. Best of all, instead of lighting each individual object, you can do it for the whole composition.

Exporting is easy—exporting your work as a vector, PNG, JPEG, SVG, and even MP4 video. From there, you can take it into any Adobe software you like. Do you need a different view? You can easily rotate the composition and export it again.

Project Concept was announced this year at Adobe MAX 2024, but it’s still in the initial stages of testing. The creative process is probably one of the most important topics in design. Increasingly tight deadlines and other limitations mean that some ideas never make it to the drawing board. The early stages are especially important when developing a concept—this is when you can explore ideas and potential directions to create something unique.

For concept creation and mood board fans, Adobe’s Project Concept is an excellent tool for exploring initial concepts. This tool integrates the latest capabilities of Adobe Firefly Generative AI models to generate multiple alternatives in a short time while still giving designers control and direction. You’re free to mix images, transform assets, and change backgrounds to create concepts that would often have taken a lot of time to develop in the past.

Like many Adobe products, Project Concept is already integrated across the Creative Cloud ecosystem. It gives designers the control to mix, apply, and reapply an idea to an asset you’ve created and reapply again. With this comes the issue of respecting other people’s work. Project Concept is working on content credentials technology to provide a source for images and respect generative AI usage.

While Adobe MAX 2024 didn’t pack as big a punch as last year, it delivered some serious wins where it counts. Firefly’s seamless integration across apps means you can stay in the creative flow without switching tools. Adobe Express is leveling the playing field, making it easier than ever for designers and non-designers to create and publish standout marketing content. With each update, Adobe is becoming more intuitive, user-friendly, and business-savvy—and we can’t wait to see what they’ve got up their sleeve for next year!

Get the most out of the Adobe suite with Envato’s collection of professionally designed graphic templates. With templates for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more, you can create amazing results in half the time. And don’t forget to check out our free Photoshop tutorials and graphic design courses.