adobe firefly is more useful for REMOVING things than GENERATING things and nobody talks about this

commercial photographer, mostly product and food. been using adobe firefly integrated in photoshop for about 6 months. everyone talks about it as an image generation tool but where its actually useful in professional work is the opposite direction: removing and fixing things.

generative fill for removing unwanted elements is absurdly good. i had a food shoot last week where there was a reflection of my softbox in a glass bottle that i couldnt angle away without ruining the composition. generative fill removed it and reconstructed the bottle surface perfectly. in the old days that would have been 20 minutes of clone stamp work by my retoucher.

expanding canvas edges: i shoot product on white backgrounds and sometimes the framing is too tight for the layout the graphic designer needs. generative fill extends the background seamlessly. no more reshooting because the art director needed more negative space.

removing crew reflections: anyone who shoots shiny products knows the pain. generative fill handles it in seconds.

where it doesnt work: anything that requires generating product-specific detail. if i ask it to extend a product label or add text to packaging it produces gibberish. the tool cant invent specific brand details (obviously). and for skin retouching i still use frequency separation because firefly tends to smooth too aggressively.

i capture shot notes and problem areas during every shoot with voice transcription in Willow Voice so i have a list of fixes needed when i open photoshop later. knowing exactly which images need what saves me from scrubbing through every photo wondering what i noticed on set.

firefly isnt replacing retouchers. but its handling the tedious 80% of retouching work (blemish removal, background extension, unwanted reflections) so retouchers can focus on the creative 20% (skin, color grading, compositing).

other commercial photographers using firefly? curious where youre finding it useful vs where it falls short.