The control of population transfer can be affected by the adiabatic evolution of a system under the influence of an applied field. If the field is too rapidly varying or too weak, the conditions for adiabatic transfer are not satisfactorily met. We report the results of an analysis of properties of counterdiabatic fields (CDFs) that restore the adiabatic dynamics of a system by suppressing diabatic effects as they are generated. We observe that a CDF is not unique and find the one that has minimum intensity, and we provide natural upper and lower bounds to the integrated intensity of a CDF in terms of integrals of the eigenvalues of the system Hamiltonian. For Hamiltonians that are separable with respect to their parameters, we prove that the time integral of an associated CDF is path independent. Finally we explain why and when, in the neighborhood of an avoided crossing, a CDF can be approximated by Lorentzian pulses.