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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
November 5, 2024
Answered

P: Reflection Removal feedback (CR & LrClassic)

  • November 5, 2024
  • 604 replies
  • 574034 views

This post applies to Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.  

 

Adobe Camera Raw team is sharing an early look of our new Reflection Removal feature, which removes reflections caused by plate glass surfaces from photos. 

 

Note: 

  • The feature currently only works on raw photos. Support for JPEGs & HEICs is added in the April 24 Update.
  • There is a known issue on some Windows machines where the feature may produce a corrupt image. We are working on a fix for the upcoming release. 

 

Check out HelpX for more detailed usage information. For more technical information on the underlying technology, please refer to this Blog post. 

 

Getting started with the Reflection Removal feature: 

  • Make sure you have the “New AI Features and Settings Panel” Technology Preview enabled in the Camera Raw plug-in Preferences dialog (requires restarting the host application to activate). 
  • Go to the Remove panel [B] , and in the “Distraction Removal” section, click on the “Reflections” checkbox. 
  • Optionally adjust the slider after the ML model is done computing. 
  • Use the rest of the Camera Raw tools just like you would otherwise. 

When using the slider, the key values to note are: 

  • 0 – the input photo
  • 100 – de-reflected (window reflections removed) photo 
  • -100 – reflection photo (what the window was reflecting towards the camera) 

 

Please try the feature and share feedback in this community forum. It would help to include details like how you access Camera Raw (via Adobe Bridge or Photoshop), your computer system details, and as much information about what you like or do not like about the resulting photo quality. Our team will continually monitor this thread to track issues to improve the future experience. 

 

When to use Reflection Removal

The feature is designed to deal with large-area reflections when shooting through windows. Many other types of reflections occur in nature and are captured in photographs, but this feature may not recognize and handle those. We plan to work on expanding the supported reflection types in the future. 

 

Example use-cases for the feature include: 

  • Looking through windows inside-out (e.g., from the car, airplane, room windows, etc.) 
  • Looking through windows outside-in (e.g., shop windows) 
  • Museums (e.g., paintings behind glass, glass case exhibits, etc.) 

 

How best to use Reflection Removal

For best results, try the new feature following these suggestions: 

  • Apply Reflection Removal before applying any other edits to the photo, except for Enhance features such as Denoise
    • The changes made to the photo may be quite profound and render any changes you already made inappropriate.
    • If you plan to use both Enhance (Denoise, Super Resolution, or Raw Details) and Reflection Removal on a photo, it is better to apply Enhance first.
  • Play with the feature slider and adjust the removal strength as appropriate.
  • If you applied Adobe Adaptive (beta) profile prior to running the Reflection Removal feature, please update it or you may see traces of removed reflections still present in the photo (Adobe Camera Raw will remind you to do this).

 

Boris Ajdin: Product Manager, Emerging Products Group 


Update (01-16-2025)

 

To improve the performance and results of this feature, it is important that examples of images that are failing to properly remove the reflections are forwarded to the team via your report.  A large variety of file formats are allowed as attachments in these forum posts. The best option is to attach your image's raw file directly to your feedback post. Note that there is a 50 MB limit on an attachment's file size. If your raw file is too large to attach, the best option is to share the file via a file-sharing service (Dropbox or similar) and then share the link in your feedback post. Thank you for continuing to provide feedback on this Tech Preview!

If you have already shared your raw file with us - thank you!

 

~Rikk

Posted by:

Correct answer Conrad_C

This reply, earlier in this thread, explains why:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/camera-raw-discussions/p-reflection-removal-feedback-cr-amp-lrclassic/m-p/15405349#M28971

 

Also, it isn’t called “glare reduction.”

604 replies

bobd650
Participant
May 24, 2026

made no difference for me.  Museum glass case has to be a common use case.  Got many such examples from the Egypt GEM King Tut

Sticks090460
Participant
May 24, 2026

It doesn’t work. End of. Sorry. 

colinbone
Participant
May 23, 2026

I’m sorry to say it but this feature really does not work. I tried to remove the reflections from a shop window and it removed one tiny portion, about 2% of all the reflections. That is no use whatsoever, and Firefly did an infinitely better job. I hope you can implement it properly. Either that or drop it, because presently it is just wasting people’s time trying to use it.

Participant
May 23, 2026

I have not tried it on windows yet; however, I was trying to get rid of the reflections on glasses and metals.  Make the whole photo look blurry and off.  I like the idea, but still needs improvements.  Saw in a previous post eye glasses is a “goal” Adobe is currently working on.  Just wanted to let you know what was going on with the tool to help improve said goal in roll out.  

foxtrot_king
Participant
May 22, 2026

I wouldn’t call it “useless” yet but it clearly was released way before it was ready and I have found other alternatives that do a great job removing reflections, Nano Banana 2 being just one choice. Yes, I can always call this 3rd party solution from Adobe but turning out a substandard feature reflects badly on the Adobe brand, engineering and maybe marketing. The competition is definitely taking market share and Adobe stock continues to drop in value while the general market is up. I am doing more tasks in DxO PhotoLab 9, and using other tools such as Excire, Neo, and lately going back to Resolve. Adobe needs to really get serious and show users that when they release something, it works. 

brysonmurray77
Participant
May 21, 2026

If this tool only works if you can barely see the reflection and anything more than that and it is too much, this is a useless feature.  This feature has never worked for me and seen many cases where it should have.  I am a real estate photographer and this is a great idea for reflections caused by flash but it has never worked.  I will include an example of one that looked perfect for this and I get nothing

 

 

foxtrot_king
Participant
May 19, 2026

Gave this another try. Dark painting shot in a museum. Not only can I see myself in the glass reflection, other museum goers as well as the painting on the far wall. Tried all three settings in Camera Raw and so almost no change/improvement. Nano Banana Pro 2 fix the issue. 

It’s not always obvious that there will be a strong reflective issue at the time of the shot but when I encounter a painting with glass, I am now shooting at an angle and then using DxO Viewpoint to correct. There was a painting on loan to the Washington National Gallery by Leonardo da Vinci where I shot at two separate angles to avoid reflection and resolved in Viewpoint. I am hopeful Adobe can improve this feature. 

Participant
May 18, 2026

works great! 🤣

Participant
May 18, 2026

It doesn’t seem to work on this shot. I’m not sure what I could do other than reshoot, perhaps with a polarizing filter. I did about 30 pieces of framed artwork in  a distant location.

Participant
May 18, 2026

he bulk of the Photoshop work I currently do is portrait headshots. Often, our photographers have issues with eyewear reflections, for which the will shoot several frames in the same pose without the glasses on the subject and I will cut out the lenses and swap out the eyes from another frame. Also I have a number of techniquesI use for dealing with reflections that are not too egregious. Both methods are time consuming.So when the Remove Reflection tools were added to ACR and PS, and I saw a demo, I thought I’d found the solution to speeding up my workflow with a little AI magic. Nope! The Reflection Removal option from the Edit Menu does not touch this kind of reflection...at all! Same for ACR’s Remove / Distractions / Reflections. I also watched a few tutorials that involved making a selection around the frames and using the Remove function in various ways, which require Flux Kontext Pro.  I work for  university that has an Enterprise Plan with Adobe that doesn’t include the Premium AI models and Firefly will do a good of removing everything but cannot retain the original eyes, which obviously does not work for portraiture.

If anyone has suggestions (we are working on including the Premium Partner Models) I’d be happy to hear any suggestions. You can respond here or email me at kcasey@vcu.edu. TIA!