Generative Expand

[clee01l]

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

Sometime when I sent a photo to Photoshop to expand is borders to fill a 16:9 HDTV screen I automatically get the option Generative Expand. Other times the Generate with FireFly comes up with no recourse to the Generative Expand option.
Presumably "Generative Expand" does not consume credits while "Generate with FireFly" does. I get plenty of Firefly credits each month so if occasionally then this not an issue. However I do wonder what the trigger is to cause Photoshop to "Generate with FireFly".

 

[Johan Elzenga]

AFAIK, both use credits. It's a matter of which tool you selected. The first dialog comes up if you selected the crop tool. The second dialog comes up if you have not selected the crop tool.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

I was about to post what Johan already said, but here’s some additional info…

The options you see in the Contextual Task Bar depend on what tool is active in Photoshop when it opens the image you sent. If the Crop tool is active, then the Contextual Task Bar presents crop-related options such as Generative Expand. If there’s a selection, the Generative Fill button appears. In other states or with other selected layers or objects, the Contextual Task Bar changes to show whatever options are relevant to the current context, such as for a selected type layer or shape layer.

Also note that it’s just Generate, not necessarily Generate with Firefly, because what it uses to generate depends on which AI model is selected in the pop-up menu. For example, when I choose one of the Google Gemini models in the demo below, the Contextual Task Bar is set up to generate with Gemini.

 

[clee01l]

Thanks to both of you.