Adobe releases Photoshop 26.9 and new Photoshop beta
Adobe has released Photoshop 26.9, the latest version of the image-editing software, widely used in the entertainment industry for concept art, texture editing, and retouching renders.
The release updates the AI-based Remove tool, and makes it possible to choose third-party AI models for Photoshop’s Firefly-based features.
In addition, Adobe has added new AI-based Generative Upscale and Harmonize features to the current public beta build of Photoshop, the latter based on its Project Perfect Blend tech demo.
Photoshop 26.9: updates to the Firefly-powered generative AI features
Photoshop 26.9 features updates to the software’s AI features, including the Remove tool.
Introduced in Photoshop 24.5, it enables users to remove unwanted objects from an image by roughly selecting them, with Photoshop generating a new background area to fill the gap.
It is now available from the Contextual Task Bar, and the generative AI model it uses has been updated.
In addition, it is now possible to choose the AI model used by generative AI features in Photoshop powered by Adobe’s Firefly toolset, like Generative Fill and Generative Expand.
Although Adobe has been keen to promote its own AI models, which are trained on stock content from its own Adobe Stock library, as “commercially safe”, the company now allows users to switch to third-party AI models in Firefly, regardless of the data on which they were trained.
Again, the selection can be made from the Contextual Task Bar.
Photoshop 26.9: other changes
It is also now possible to share images via third-party communications apps like Slack or Apple’s Mail and Notes from within Photoshop: for example, to get feedback from collaborators.
Images can be shared in JPG, PNG, or PSD formats at original or reduced resolution.
Now in beta: new AI-powered Harmonize and Generative Upscale features
In addition, Adobe has added new AI feature to the current beta build of Photoshop, available to subscribers in parallel with the stable release.
Harmonize is an AI compositing feature based on last year’s Project Perfect Blend tech demo.
It automatically blends a foreground object into a background plate, automatically removing the image’s own background, and adjusting the lighting, color and shadows.
Generative Upscale is, not surprisingly, an AI image upscaler.
In the current release, it can upscale images to a maximum dimension of 4,096px.
Although both features are based on Firefly, in the beta build, only Harmonize consumes generative credits: Generative Upscale can be used for free.
Price and system requirements
Photoshop 26.9 is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. In the online documentation, it is also referred to as the July 2025 release or Photoshop 2025.7.
The software is rental-only, with Photography subscription plans that include access to Photoshop costing $239.88/year.
Single-app Photoshop subscriptions cost $34.49/month or $263.88/year.
Read Adobe’s release notes for Photoshop 26.9
Read an overview of the features in the latest public beta release of Photoshop
Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.