Adobe has added a set of AI-powered photo editing tools to Project Indigo, its experimental iPhone camera app available on the Apple App Store. The features were reported by tech outlets on July 20, 2026 (9to5Mac, PetaPixel).

Project Indigo was introduced by Adobe in 2024, about a year before these new AI tools arrived (Engadget). The app is a testing ground for camera and photo ideas that might eventually show up in Adobe's main products. Adobe keeps an official FAQ page for the project on its helpx.adobe.com website (Adobe Helpx).

The new feature set, called AI Playground, offers four sections: Object Editing, Styles, Photo Guidance, and Custom Edit (Engadget).

Object Editing lets you remove things from a photo — people, cars, signs — that you don't want in the frame. It can also blur the background to make the subject stand out, similar to the Portrait Mode feature on smartphones, but applied after you take the photo rather than during.

Styles transforms your photos to look like drawings or paintings, using options with names like "pen and ink" or "ink line with color wash." The names suggest Adobe is aiming for traditional art techniques rather than the quick filters you'd find in a social media camera app.

Photo Guidance gives you feedback on your photos and can even suggest improvements before you take the shot. This means the app is looking at the live camera preview, spotting issues with how the picture is framed or lit, and telling you what to fix in real time. Adobe has not publicly explained how this guidance system works behind the scenes.

Custom Edit lets you change a photo by typing instructions in plain words, like asking the app to "make the sky orange" or "add a tree on the left." This kind of text-based photo editing has become common across the industry over the past two years.

The key thing is that all four tools live inside the camera app itself, not in a separate editing program on your computer. Adobe is putting AI-powered editing right where you take the photo.

AI Playground was free when it launched, but only a small percentage of users got access, and only for a few weeks. Adobe's Nextcam Team said that if the feature proves popular, it will eventually become a paid feature (Engadget). This kind of small, limited test is typical of how Adobe tries out new features before deciding on pricing.

The broader context here is how Adobe plans to make money from AI. The company has poured significant investment into AI image tools across its products, and there is no settled answer yet in the industry on how to charge for these capabilities — whether by subscription, per feature, or bundled together. Project Indigo's AI Playground could become one piece of that puzzle.

What makes this worth watching is the bigger picture. Smartphone cameras already use software to improve photos the moment you press the shutter. AI editing tools have grown up separately. Adobe is now combining the two inside a phone camera app, so the line between taking a photo and changing it keeps getting thinner — not on a desktop, but in the seconds between pointing your camera and pressing the button.