Do we recommend Adobe Firefly’s AI image generator for science communication?
In our science communication studio we’re exploring whether AI image generators deserve a place in our visuals toolkit. With years developing skills to conceptualize and depict scientific topics, we’re curious if tools like Adobe Firefly can help speed up our workflow or even make us rethink our process. Furthermore, we’re wondering, can we recommend AI to clients and readers like you who need a quick, affordable way of producing images for science? To explore this, we used Adobe Firefly to create water molecules. Continue reading to see how our AI chemistry illustration turned out, and what we think about AI images for science.
In our last exploration we dove into 3 different platforms, Adobe Firefly, MidJourney, and ChatGPT’s DALL-E as our first look at AI’s usefulness to create science visuals. We were at once impressed with the imagery, but also a little dismayed by the inaccuracies. Our initial results showed that AI images were really best used for inspiration, and at the most, for conceptual art pieces that don’t necessitate details. In my recent YouTube video, I felt like I could try a little harder, I wanted to try two things with AI Art:
- Can simple figures be used as guidance, and improved aesthetically with AI?
- Is AI useful for exploring different styles?
Drawing a water molecule with Adobe Firefly
To further explore using AI as an inspiration tool, I started with something that feels simpler scientifically: a water molecule. I also decided to focus on Adobe Firefly, because thus far their licensing agreements seem most ethical, AND on first impressions, it seems to be a great tool for exploring different styles. So without further ado, here is the basic prompt I started with:
AI Adobe Firefly prompt:
“Scientific illustration of water molecules”
Unsurprisingly, the resulting image was completely wrong. Did it look pretty? Yes. Did it ‘evoke’ water? Yes, as far as water is wet, this image looks shiny and transparent. But molecularly accurate? Anyone who remembers high school chemistry will recognize that chemically, there is nothing resembling our Mickey Mouse molecule of hydrogens and oxygen.
Using reference images to increase AI accuracy
After trying different prompt variations with little success, I wanted to test the reference feature. Most image generators now allow you to upload a reference image. This is where I appreciate Adobe, unlike others, it prompts you to acknowledge that you own rights to the image. So if you’re unfamiliar with image copyright (check out our copyright basics article ), this means that you created the image yourself, or you’ve gotten permission to use it. AI imagery is definitely akin to the wild-wild-west right now, and most other AI apps don’t point this out.
Getting back to our work, for this quick test I used the software that most researchers we work with use, PowerPoint. Using the simple circle shape in PPT, I quickly put together some space-filling H20 molecules and exported it as a jpg. Once saved out as a JPG, I uploaded it into Firefly to see what we would get.
Can we help Adobe Firefly accuracy with a reference image?
After coaching Adobe Firefly with our quick PPT water image and a little more prompt editing, we got a little bit closer to images that almost depicted molecules. The red wasn’t on the Oxygen (the larger atom), and the white wasn’t always on the hydrogen, but closer! Could we have gotten an actual accurate water molecule? Perhaps, but at this point, it really felt like it would be faster to hand draw OR render in my 3d program.
Was this result accurate enough to use in a figure, even as part of it? Absolutely not. What about a science journal cover? NO! Can we use it for our original intent, as more of a background image in a pitch deck title slide, or as a website header? I wouldn’t, but it’s possible we could have gotten it there. What I did still want to explore though, was style. Could we use this as a tool to explore style? Either for our studio as we’re ideating initial projects, or as a way for clients to provide professional designers ideas on the looks that they like?
Adobe Firefly for science imagery style experimentation
As we said earlier, one place where Adobe Firefly really shines is its ability to create a ton of different, unique styles. Can other image generators do the same? Definitely, but Adobe has clearly worked hard to build a deep set of references to pull from. And again, from what we’ve found, they’ve only used images from their stock library where artists licensed this use. (We will continue to keep our eye out on these details, and would love to hear in the comments if you have found differently. Here is a link to their terms as of 2024).
What I really love are Adobe’s visual cues for all of the different style variations. Even if you’ve forgotten your art history 101, you can easily experiment. Even as a seasoned science illustrator, I still find variations that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Fabric art or impressionism? Play with it in Adobe Firefly.
Do we recommend Adobe Firefly for science communication?
I went into this hoping that I could “coach” Firefly into producing an accurate chemistry illustration. The H2O molecule reference image was useful, but it wasn’t enough. So do we recommend Adobe Firefly for science communication? The quick answer is, not on its own. Using AI image generators directly to communicate science is bound to fail. It makes sense since their algorithms aggregate huge datasets of what’s already been done. Even if they’re recombining those images, it’s not going to be able to communicate new scientific innovations, or even longstanding existing knowledge… like the structure of water.
So what do you do if your budget doesn’t allow you to hire a professional science illustrator or animator, and you need to communicate your science? As accuracy is non-negotiable, you’re looking at putting in the work to do it yourself with tools like BioRender. In this vein, we’re putting together tips for creating your own figures in tools like Canva, which we hope to share soon. When you need “hero images” for us in your profiles, slide covers, and website banners, we recommend stock like sciencephoto for low-cost options. Will these be unique and perfectly match your story? No, but they’re more likely to capture
So how is Adobe Firefly useful for Scicomm?
So are Adobe Firefly, and more largely AI image generators, useful at all for science? Absolutely. We’ve honestly been impressed by the ease one can try out different looks and styles, and Adobe Firefly in particular is incredibly useful to spark ideas and get the creative juices flowing. Not only will we use it for our initial brainstorming, we recommend that science clients who want to take more of an active role in their scivis projects, can come to designers and artists with different looks that they want in hand. In fact, this was how we recently created a project with Kolin Clark for HIV science art.
As always, thank you so much for reading! We’d love to hear from you in the comments, whether that’s about AI, science communication, or beyond. And in case you’re curious about non-AI, human-generated science art, here is one of SayoStudio’s water molecule illustrations:
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