Scott Cohen
Principal Scientist
San Jose, CA
Scott is a researcher at Adobe Systems, Incorporated working in the areas of computer vision and image processing. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from Stanford University in 1999 where his advisor was Professor Leonidas Guibas. He also earned a B.S. degree in mathematics from Stanford University in 1993. He did two summer internships in 1993 and 1994 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Alan Hindmarsh, where he worked on the CVODE ordinary differential equation solver.
He joined Adobe in July 1999 after completing his doctorate degree. A major focus of his work at Adobe has been selection in images and videos. For example, he made fundamental technology contributions to the Photoshop Quick Selection Tool which uses a brush-based interface to allow users to make a very good selection quickly, and to the Photoshop Refine Edge dialog which allows users to refine a selection to capture fine details such as hair and fur. His technical work for both of these selection features was done with his frequent Adobe collaborator Gregg Wilensky. He has also been a frequent collaborator with Brigham Young University, most recently with Professor Bryan Morse and his Ph.D. student Brian Price on interactive selection in video and images, and image matting.
His research interests include interactive image and video segmentation, image and video matting, stereo, upsampling, and deblurring.
Publications
Polarized Color Screen Matting
Highlight
PatchMatch-Based Content Completion of Stereo Image Pairs
Best Paper Award
News
Photoshop turns 35: How Adobe Research helps keep creatives on the cutting edge
35 years of Photoshop! From early masking tools to today’s generative AI, Adobe Research has fueled breakthroughs that push the boundaries of creativity—turning bold ideas into everyday magic for creators worldwide.
September 15, 2025Scott Cohen on 25 years of innovation at Adobe Research
Scott Cohen, Senior Principal Scientist, celebrates 25 years at Adobe Research, where he has contributed to innovations like Photoshop’s quick selection tool and led initiatives such as Project Stardust, transforming image editing from pixels to objects. Check out the story to learn more.
December 17, 2024TechSummit: Adobe Explores What’s Next
Adobe's 2019 TechSummit delved deep into the future of technology and helped Adobe staff forge new connections.
February 28, 2019