My friends at CreativePro Magazine asked me to summarize the major Adobe Creative Cloud upgrades announced at the Adobe MAX conference in October 2023. You’ll find my annual analysis in the article What’s New in Creative Cloud 2024/Magic in the Machine, published in the November 2023 issue.

Every autumn, the Adobe MAX conference brings a wave of major upgrades across Creative Cloud products and services, and it’s also a time to review other important Creative Cloud changes that happened since the previous year’s Adobe MAX. Adobe then supports the new releases on the conference side, with sessions that are educational, inspirational, and of course promotional.

One way to process Adobe MAX is to look for the list of what’s changed in your favorite application, such as Photoshop. But I also think it’s important to step back and look at where Adobe is steering Creative Cloud as a whole, and why.

It might be no surprise to hear that what really drove Creative Cloud changes in the last year was generative AI technology. The implications of generative AI resonate through a broad range of Creative Cloud desktop and mobile apps and services, from the high-end photo and video applications all the way down to the quick and easy Adobe Express service for social media graphics.

To read my analysis of the changes to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic/Lightroom, Adobe Illustrator, and others, click the links below. The first link leads to issue 25 of CreativePro Magazine (November 2023) in PDF format, and the second link leads to the article on the CreativePro website. Both are available to members with a paid CreativePro membership.

Go to CreativePro Magazine, Issue 25. The article is on page 17.

Go to What’s New in Creative Cloud 2024 on CreativePro.com.

The article includes the section Creative Cloud: The Firefly Generation. This is an overview of the implications of generative AI in Creative Cloud — including issues such as creator compensation, identifying images that contain generative AI, and how to pay for the processing load on cloud servers — and the many ways Adobe has designed Creative Cloud generative AI to address those concerns.

All CreativePro Magazine issues are available as a benefit of a paid CreativePro membership, which may interest you if you want to advance your Adobe Creative Cloud skills with the help of some of the most knowledgeable users in the industry. Filled with practical, real-world tutorials written by experts, CreativePro Magazine provides independent, valuable insights into how to work more efficiently and design more effectively. Each issue offers tutorials, reviews, news, and inspirational content from five main subjects: Design, Photo, Illustration, Presentation, and InDesign. You can download a free trial issue. Membership also brings other benefits, including discounts on CreativePro events such as the annual CreativePro Week conference, and conferences on other subjects such as accessibility and presentation design.