@robdewinter1 returns to CreativePro Week for his 4th year as a speaker! 🎹
Designer, Adobe Certified Instructor, author, photographer, AI workflow experimenter, and accomplished pianist, Rob has a talent for making advanced creative technology feel approachable and practical.
Whether he’s teaching Photoshop, exploring new AI-powered workflows, or showing designers smarter ways to work, Rob brings an infectious energy and curiosity to every session.
Don’t miss his sessions, “Beyond Compositing: Creative Workflows Powered by AI” and “After Effects for Graphic Designers,” at CreativePro Week 2026 in Nashville.
Photoshop and Illustrator have been a dynamic duo at the core of professional design workflows for decades. But these powerhouse programs are always evolving, and yesterday’s best practices have been replaced by new tools and techniques that are easier and faster than ever.
If you want to save time and get better results with photos and illustrations, these five sessions at CreativePro Week 2026, picked by our Editor-In-Chief Mike Rankin, are just the ticket:
• Hidden Photoshop Features Designers Love – @jrfromptc
• Photoshop and Illustrator: Playing Nice Together – @nigelfrenchphoto
• Mastering Masking in Lightroom & Camera Raw – @photoshopwithben
• Illustrator Power Techniques – @lauracoylecreative
• Beyond Compositing: Creative Workflows Powered by AI – @robdewinter1
Wow, Rotate Object is now available in Photoshop Beta!
In short: you can turn a "flat" 2D layer into a 3D object and change the direction and perspective of your subject. Something that was (almost) impossible before.
For me, this feels like yet another puzzle piece that drastically changes the compositing workflow in @photoshop . A very useful addition that gives you a lot of control over the final result.
Here's how it works:
→ Place a photo in another Photoshop document (or just open a photo)
→ Remove the background (if you don't, Rotate Object will do it automatically)
→ Transform the object (Cmd-T on macOS or Ctrl-T on Windows, or click one of the transform handles with the Move tool)
→ Click Rotate Object in the Contextual Taskbar: Photoshop now creates a low-resolution 3D version from the flat layer (for the nerds: a Gaussian Splat. This 3D model consists of points, which is why the resolution is low, but it's also very fast to manipulate).
→ You can use the controls in the Contextual Taskbar, the handles on the sides of your 3D object, or (my personal favorite) click and drag with your right mouse button held down. That gives you the most control, in my opinion. Don't forget that you can also rotate the object the regular way to set the angle.
→ Click "Done" in the Contextual Taskbar. Here's what happens: Photoshop upscales the image by combining the low-resolution 3D model with your original 2D layer. An incredibly powerful method. In the car example, pay attention to the license plate: it rotates along perfectly in 3D space, without getting mirrored.
→ If you clicked Done and want to edit the rotation again, just transform again and click Edit Rotation.
→ Cherry on top: if your subject doesn't quite fit the scene yet, just click Harmonize in the Contextual Taskbar. Photoshop will match the lighting and create shadows.
I'm a fan!
If you want to try this yourself, download the new Photoshop Beta in the Creative Cloud app (available today). Or comment "grumpy cat" below and you can... still go download it yourself (😆).
Anyway, lemme know what you think!
Have fun!
The Adobe MAX conference was almost over when I stopped by Cesar Viera and Germán Benito’s photo studio just to say goodbye. They had both been there the whole week photographing everyone for Russell Brown’s pre-conference, and somehow we hadn’t gotten around to taking photos of me yet.
I told them I was completely exhausted, but they said that was no problem at all. So I bent my knees to fit in frame (downside of being tall 😆), and within a few clicks Cesar had these shots with his professional setup and beautiful lighting, while Germán helped out to make sure everything ran smoothly.
Really happy with how they turned out.
📷 thanks to @cesarviera_photography@gervisuals@dr_brown
One of those early spring mornings where the sun is finally back and you can actually feel the warmth again. I was about to teach a Photoshop class in Brussels and happened to have my Leica Q3 with me. It’s beautifully compact and doesn’t draw much attention, so I could quietly wait for her to exhale the smoke before taking the shot. I think the @leica_camera is incredible in capturing shadows 😍
And the best part nowadays is that you can edit straight away in @lightroom Mobile on iPhone. One of my favorite apps, super intuitive!
The Golden Spiral (or Golden Ratio) has always been a bit of a mystery, at least to me 😄. Is it a “fairy tale” or an actual thing?
It’s based on the 1:1.618 ratio. You find it in seashells, flowers and galaxies. And sometimes, surprisingly, in photos you simply like. The idea is that the curve of the spiral guides your eye along the important elements, ending at the main subject.
It’s always fun to lay it over your own photos. I usually do this long after editing, just for fun and almost as an afterthought, in @photoshop or @lightroom . I grab the Crop tool, set the overlay to Golden Spiral and see if it fits the composition (tip: use Shift+O to easily cycle through the orientation of the spiral).
The spiral doesn’t always fit, but it fits surprisingly often on photos that have been my favorites for a while.
Here are a few recent photos where the spiral just seemed to fit.
Fun for the weekend: try it yourself. If you find a good one, feel free to post it in the comments below!
All photos are shot with a @leica_camera Q3
This is absolutely incredible. @apple 's new SHARP model (open source, single image to 3D) lets you generate 3D Gaussian Splats with full depth information in just seconds, running entirely locally on your own machine (!).
I built a custom interface where you can drag and drop images, plus a Three.js viewer to navigate through the splat in real-time. Built with a little help from Anthropic's @claudeai . You can even open it in fullscreen for a closer look, and adjust the splat/point size.
For fun, I tested it on iconic paintings by Dutch masters: Escher, Vermeer, and Van Gogh. The results were stunning, I think (especially when you realise it only took seconds to generate locally on an M1 Max MacBook Pro and it even analysed this magical Escher drawing). I also tried photos from one of my favorite shows of the year, Severance (at the end of the video).
I think this technology will be invaluable for VR experiences, but also as reference material for AI image generation, and probably a lot more I haven't even thought of yet. This feels like a small piece of something much bigger.
What would you use this for?
Some more random photos from Tenerife, from cats and dogs to people (it’s always funny to see tourists “in action”), a fly and a pigeon. All taken with my @leica_camera Q3, sent to @lightroom via the Leica app, and edited on my iPhone. #myleicaphoto
Another day in Tenerife. What a beautiful and diverse island!
All photos taken with my @leica_camera Q3 (28mm), sent to my phone via the Leica app and edited in @lightroom Mobile.
Honestly, I don’t spend much time on the editing itself. Quick photo selection, subtle adjustments to shadows and highlights (sometimes a bit of extra vibrance), occasionally an adaptive sky preset to bring out the blue, but I think the part I enjoy most is finding the right crop. The Q3’s 60 megapixels give you so much freedom there! 😍 #myleicaphoto
Matching skies in Venice Beach ☁️
Edited in Photoshop. When I took the original photo (second photo in the carousel), I already imagined how cool it would be if the real sky looked the same as the sky on the building. I played around with Generative Fill (Nano Banana), masking, painting, selections, and so on. Always such a fun process!
