1. More AI in Lightroom and Photoshop, Insta360 Air – Photo News of Week 44/2025

• Cheaper Insta360—even with 8K
• New Canon next week
• What’s super about the Supermoon

Welcome to what is called a “link desert” in online journalism. Unlike this format, our column this week is unmanageable. At its in-house trade fair, officially called “Creative Conference,” Adobe announced so many innovations that discussing them individually would exceed the scope of this text.

The core is that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly integrated into all the company’s image and video editing tools. This is not only with its image generator, Firefly, but also with models from other providers. The much-praised models from Topaz Labs for upscaling are now also included in Photoshop. And for filling, for example, backgrounds, models from Google like Gemini can be used. Adobe is therefore quite open, which is quite clever: The development in artificial intelligence is so rapid that it is better to cooperate than to replicate everything. What else is there:

All new features in Photoshop overview from Adobe.

However, Adobe is taking a slightly different approach with Lightroom: here, functions are being replicated; there’s no other way to put it. Because the new “Assisted Image Selection” function, according to Adobe’s demos, looks almost exactly like its counterpart in Excire Search. With both tools, images can be grouped by content, for example, by selecting only those with the best focus on people or particularly high sharpness from a burst shot. In addition, there are new batch functions, better dust removal—of course via AI—and more:

All new features in Lightroom overview from Adobe.

Of course, the in-house model, Firefly, has also received a major update, here to version 5. Adobe promises, among other things, more realism and a novelty compared to many other generators: native resolutions of 4 megapixels. “Native” is the keyword here; the model is not supposed to create smaller images and then upscale them. You can also do that yourself, as seen above, with the Topaz scalers in Photoshop. In addition, videos can be created directly in the browser, and audio for speech and sound effects can also be generated—here, it seems they have clearly looked at OpenAI’s Sora2. Furthermore:

All new features in Firefly overview from Adobe.

All new functions are to be made available to subscribers gradually; some are already accessible in the beta versions of the programs. And if you haven’t had enough of Adobe yet:

Demo videos of the new features at Adobe.

Cheaper Insta360—even with 8K

The current high-end model of the 360-degree cameras with two lenses from Insta360 is called X5 costs around 590 euros. For those who want to get a taste of all-round filming, there is now a cheaper offer with the X4 Air: 399 Euros are asked for the camera, or 429 with a selfie stick and a second battery. Insta360 has slightly reduced the power storage compared to the larger model, so the camera is also smaller and, at 165 grams, lighter than the 200 grams of the X5. The runtime is likely to decrease accordingly.

Two essential features that contribute to the X5’s convincing images have been retained in the X4 Air: the relatively scratch-resistant and interchangeable lenses, as well as the 8K resolution. It is only through the latter that there is enough sharpness when converting the spherical panoramas to rectangular images. However, the X5 must be computationally superior, as its sensors are 1/1.28 inches, while the X4 Air’s are only 1/1.8. Thus, the Air has 40 percent less sensor area, purely based on the data sheet—this should affect image quality. Our detailed report on the Insta360 X4 Air reveals everything else.

Upon request, another parallel to the larger model, the image section is saved together with a shot aligned with the horizon. This is intended to facilitate post-processing. It seems that Insta360 has saved in the right places.

New Canon next week

Next week, we’ll reveal that we’ll also be dealing with “real,” i.e., large, cameras designed for photos again. Because Canon has already created a livestream on YouTube, which is scheduled to take place on November 6th. The preview image shows a large camera on a tripod. So: “real” equipment.

What’s super about the Supermoon

But that will be too late for the “supermoon” that rises over Germany on November 5th. Our recommendation from ARD alpha for a long read on Sunday evening explains what these supermoons are all about—there are several each year—and why our satellite appears larger or smaller at times: “The largest full moon of the year 2025.”

(nie)

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This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.