Is the image above perfect? No. Could it still save a team hours of editing time? Absolutely. AI for creatives can feel both intimidating and exhausting. Every week brings a new tool that promises to solve everything, and it feels like an ever-changing landscape we have to keep up with. But every once in a while something comes along that genuinely blows my mind. This time, it was Photoshop’s new Harmonize tool, released in Beta.
I'm Hooked
This tool changed the way I work within a week of its release. I can take a headshot snapped in my house and make it look like it came from a professional studio (see my home page headshots, I’m not ashamed). I can blend product photos into backgrounds, even stock images, and they look like they were always meant to be there. For someone leading creative across dozens of brands, that kind of flexibility is a game-changer.
Not Perfect, Still Magic
Instead of styling and shooting products in elaborate sets, I can generate a background, drop in the product, hit Harmonize, and instantly get something polished, seamless, and believable. The budgets and time constraints that used to limit us feel far less intimidating now.
Is it perfect? Not yet. AI images can still look waxy or slightly off. But that’s where the creative eye matters: knowing what works, what needs adjusting, and when authenticity is more important than polish. AI isn’t replacing creative, it’s expanding it. It lets us test faster, imagine bigger, and put products in places we never could before.
The Bigger Picture
And yes, I could just toss a product into ChatGPT and prompt an image. But the results usually feel repetitive and generic. With Photoshop I control the angle, the composition, and the creative direction from the start, which makes the outcome sharper and more intentional.
The opportunity now is to stay on top of these tools and figure out how to make them work for us. In a crowded market, it will always be harder to stand out, but there’s more opportunity for those who use innovation with purpose. Harmonize didn’t just save me time, it reminded me why creative will always matter: the tools are only as powerful as the ideas behind them.
So give it a try yourself and let me know if it’s as game-changing for you as it has been for me.
