P: The generative fill in Photoshop 26.0.0 is definitely worse than in previous versions.

Hi! 
I ended up re-downloading a previous version of PS instead of the 26.0 version. 
Generative Fill AI works wonderfully now doing that! 

hi @CMass,

yes, it is happening with every generation. Here's a screenshot.

I sent probably 50-100 in-app feedbacks while experiencing this. A random lady sitting on my model's glasses, bugs crawling on skin, flowers growing out of pores. I might have gotten a bit hysterical while doing so. Anyways you should have a great line of feedback from my retouching session a couple of days ago. That's before I found this forum.

Hi CM,

Thank you for sharing the tip!

As someone who works daily with Photoshop and generative fill, I’m focused on producing top-quality results within tight timelines. This means I don’t always have the flexibility to rate, comment, or answer feedback questions—my priority is often generating new prompts or moving on to the next task. Professional retouching demands a careful balance of speed and quality, so I’m constantly focused on maintaining that standard.

Thanks for understanding!

Leaving the field blank does absolutely not work in the newest version, putting in a precise prompt did also not work at all. I now downgraded to the previous version and things are back to perfectly normal. I got flowers or weird objects on skin and generally absolutely random and low quality (texture-wise and content-wise) results at almost each try. These objects appeared when I left the field blank, hit enter and was actually trying to even out a wrinkle on skin.

Thank you, CM and Stephen, for your responses.

I was curious as to why the drop in quality hadn’t been noticed earlier, but I appreciate the insights. I’m hopeful that the quality we had in version 26.00 will return—or even improve—with the upcoming Photoshop 25.12.0 release. Right now, unfortunately, it’s just not usable.

In terms of using prompts, I've found some interesting behavior. For example, when working on fabric textures and removing a button, including "no" in the prompt seems to improve the chances that it’s removed, compared to leaving the prompt blank. Similarly, for hair: adding the word "hair" helps fill in empty spaces with hair more reliably than an empty prompt, which can sometimes yield other gaps or unrelated textures.

The new generative fill of Photoshop 26.0.0 beyond its current quality issues, also tends to add unexpected elements into hair, like small flowers, that don’t belong in the composition.

@Stephen Nielson   I wonder what is happening that our experiences are so different. I have yet to have a good result from a blank prompt in photoshop 2025, yet "remove" almost always helps. Though nothing so far has been as good as simply reverting to 2024.

Can others chime in with their comparisons?

@robertw44482386 good point. Yes, in some cases simply using the word "remove" is better. But usually a blank prompt or "remove" gives you are better result than trying to describe the area you are filling.

Thanks @Stephen Nielson for responding and acknowledging. I would have to disagree strongly with the blank prompt suggestion though. In my experience the blank prompt is MORE likely to produce a salamander or a red pepper or a tiara etc....

I have been having more success with just simply using the word "remove." This seems to quell the hallucinatory results. 

Thanks for the feedback and examples. We are investigating this and are committed to giving you the best possible results with Generative Fill.

A few thoughts:

1.  When removing an area, we see that GenFill usually gives better results with a blank prompt (instead of "hair" or "no"). Generative models can be unpredictable, but that may help in this case.
2.  We are aware of an issue where texture quality is lower than expected, and we are investigating both short-term and long-term fixes.
3. In our internal testing, we see Image 3 Model produce higher quality results on average than the previous version. As I mentioned, generative models can be unpredictable. There are many cases where the new model is better, but there are some where the results are worse. For the next version of the Firefly model, our priorities are to deliver more consistent quality and higher resolution output.

As some have already mentioned, you can still access the old model by using Photoshop 2024 (v25.x). You are able to have both Photoshop 2024 and 2025 installed at the same time.

Thanks again for your feedback, it is very helpful!