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About a year and half ago Adobe launched Firefly and warned that this generative AI would be limited by so called "Generative Credits", meaning you get a monthly allocation of generative credits and when they are used up you will have to wait for next month for them to be renewed or pay to buy more.
So what are these generative credits?
According to the info on the Adobe site "Generative credits are like tokens you can use to generate high-quality image, vector, video, and audio outputs. They can be used with features in most Creative Cloud products, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe Firefly."*
And:
"Creative Cloud plans include a monthly allocation of generative credits, which you can use to create generative AI content in various Creative Cloud apps. The number of generative credits included in each plan varies, and the amount of generative credits features use also depends on the type of feature and the type of plan you have a subscription to."*
Here's a screenshot of the various plans and their monthly allocation of generative credits:
So then, how do these credits work exactly? Or more importantly, how many credits does a certain action with a generative tool consume?
First of all, Adobe calls a single action with a generative tool a "generation". Mind you, this is not a single action, it is a single stroke, literally. So say you are using the Generative Remove tool in Photoshop. If you can remove something with one stroke, that's a generation. If you need more strokes, that means an equal amount of generations. Put differently: a generation is a single action from when you put down the cursor to where you lift it again. In other words, if you subscribed after 17 June 2025, 25 credits in the Photography plan won't get you very far, unless you rarely need to use a generative tool.
Back to the question of how much credits a single Standard generation consumes. That is a question I had a hard timing finding the answer to but I finally found it in the Adobe FAQ:
"Standard generative AI features, like Generative Fill in Photoshop, use 1 credit per generation."*
The credits that are allotted in the Photography plan will only give you access to Standard generations. For so called Premium generations you will need a more expensive plan, like the Creative Cloud Pro or Firefly plan. These Premium plans also give unlimited access to standard generations.
But even the most expensive Premium plan will only give you unlimited access to Standard generations and still limits Premium generations. The Firefly Premium plan e.g. allots 50,000 credits for premium generations. That sounds like a lot but generating a 1080p video at 24fps will cost you 100 credits per second. That would be 6,000 a minute. Hmmm...
On the Adobe forum people reported having run out of credits in Photoshop and getting this message:
"You don't have enough credits for this generative action. Upgrade your Firefly plan now to get more credits for continued access or wait until your monthly reset."
All this makes me wary of what's to come. When they launched Firefly they said that once you would run out of credits you wouldn't lose access to the generative tools, the tool would just slow down. Now, 18 months on, that's off the table and you have to either wait until next month or buy more credits. I think this is going to be a nice new milk cow for Adobe.
• [Quoted from Adobe's FAQ on the subject]
So what are these generative credits?
According to the info on the Adobe site "Generative credits are like tokens you can use to generate high-quality image, vector, video, and audio outputs. They can be used with features in most Creative Cloud products, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe Firefly."*
And:
"Creative Cloud plans include a monthly allocation of generative credits, which you can use to create generative AI content in various Creative Cloud apps. The number of generative credits included in each plan varies, and the amount of generative credits features use also depends on the type of feature and the type of plan you have a subscription to."*
Here's a screenshot of the various plans and their monthly allocation of generative credits:
So then, how do these credits work exactly? Or more importantly, how many credits does a certain action with a generative tool consume?
First of all, Adobe calls a single action with a generative tool a "generation". Mind you, this is not a single action, it is a single stroke, literally. So say you are using the Generative Remove tool in Photoshop. If you can remove something with one stroke, that's a generation. If you need more strokes, that means an equal amount of generations. Put differently: a generation is a single action from when you put down the cursor to where you lift it again. In other words, if you subscribed after 17 June 2025, 25 credits in the Photography plan won't get you very far, unless you rarely need to use a generative tool.
Back to the question of how much credits a single Standard generation consumes. That is a question I had a hard timing finding the answer to but I finally found it in the Adobe FAQ:
"Standard generative AI features, like Generative Fill in Photoshop, use 1 credit per generation."*
The credits that are allotted in the Photography plan will only give you access to Standard generations. For so called Premium generations you will need a more expensive plan, like the Creative Cloud Pro or Firefly plan. These Premium plans also give unlimited access to standard generations.
But even the most expensive Premium plan will only give you unlimited access to Standard generations and still limits Premium generations. The Firefly Premium plan e.g. allots 50,000 credits for premium generations. That sounds like a lot but generating a 1080p video at 24fps will cost you 100 credits per second. That would be 6,000 a minute. Hmmm...
On the Adobe forum people reported having run out of credits in Photoshop and getting this message:
"You don't have enough credits for this generative action. Upgrade your Firefly plan now to get more credits for continued access or wait until your monthly reset."
All this makes me wary of what's to come. When they launched Firefly they said that once you would run out of credits you wouldn't lose access to the generative tools, the tool would just slow down. Now, 18 months on, that's off the table and you have to either wait until next month or buy more credits. I think this is going to be a nice new milk cow for Adobe.
• [Quoted from Adobe's FAQ on the subject]
