Adobe Tests AI Photo Editing in Project Indigo App Using Google's Nano Banana Model

Adobe is rolling out experimental AI photo editing tools to select users of Project Indigo, its free iPhone camera app that launched in 2025. The new "AI Playground" feature set uses Google's Nano Banana model as its underlying engine.

Limited Test Parameters

The AI Playground will be available to "a few percent" of Project Indigo users for "a few weeks," according to Adobe. The company is offering the features free with no sign-in required during this experimental phase. Adobe states its goal is to understand how users interact with generative AI editing tools. If successful, the company plans to eventually offer a paid version.

Adobe says it will only collect button press analytics during the test. The company claims it "won't look at your prompts, or images, or upload them to [its] servers, or use them to train AI models." Data collection is anonymous due to the lack of required sign-in.

Four AI Editing Categories

The AI Playground includes:

Object Editing: Removes distractions from photos and can defocus backgrounds to simulate shallow depth of field. Users can toggle removal of predefined distractor categories or add custom ones via text or voice input.

Styles: Applies artistic techniques to photos, re-rendering images to mimic traditional art styles. Adobe says these represent techniques that work best on everyday snapshots.

Photo Guidance: Provides AI-generated critiques and suggestions for both reshoot and editing improvements, designed to help users learn photography.

Custom Edit: Accepts arbitrary text prompts for generative editing. Adobe specifically mentions the capability to convert drawings, paintings, or sculptures into photographic representations.

Technical Implementation

Adobe is using Google's Nano Banana model, which outputs Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) images only. Since Project Indigo supports High Dynamic Range (HDR) capture, Adobe built a custom machine learning model to upconvert Nano Banana's SDR output back to HDR. The company acknowledges this process "is not perfect and relies heavily on the output Nano Banana produces."

The AI features only work on images captured within Project Indigo. For imported photos, the AI Playground button remains disabled.

App Background

Project Indigo launched over a year ago as an experimental iPhone camera app with full manual controls. In April 2026, Adobe expanded it to select iPads and the iPhone 17e, adding grid view, photo filtering, and quality improvements.

What This Means

Adobe is testing consumer appetite for AI editing in a prosumer camera app while avoiding the privacy concerns that typically accompany cloud-based generative AI. The use of Google's Nano Banana model—presumably an on-device model given the no-upload claims—represents a shift toward local AI processing. The custom HDR upconversion layer Adobe built suggests current on-device models still lag behind cloud alternatives in image quality. The time-limited, small-scale test indicates Adobe is cautious about committing resources before validating user interest.