P: People Masking fails on Mac (Intel)

Hope Adobe fixes this soon, because this issue is pushing me to use Capture One more and more. I’ve noticed it happens mostly on Intel-based MacBooks.

To Adobe: not all of us are upgrading our computers (at least not yet), so better support for existing hardware would really be appreciated. From what I’ve experienced, this seems to be related to Camera Raw.

Here’s a temporary fix that has worked for me after trying several things (with help from ChatGPT). Note: you may need to repeat this after a few days of using Lightroom, as the issue may come back.

Steps:

1. Close Lightroom (make sure it’s fully closed and not running in the background)

2. In Finder, press Command + Shift + G

3. Paste: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/ and press Enter

4. Delete the following folders: Logs, ModelSupport, ModelZoo (Lightroom will automatically recreate them when needed, according to ChatGPT)

5. Restart your Mac

6. Open Lightroom

7. Select a photo with a person

8. Go to Develop → Masking → immediately select “Subject” (this forces the AI models to download again)

9. Wait 10–30 seconds

10. Then go to Masking → People

After this, Lightroom should detect people and their individual features correctly.

Again, this a solution provided by ChatGPT that has worked for me. Hope it helps you too!. 

Moderators, ​@Rikk Flohr_Photography, please merge with this growing thread about problems with people masking on Intel Macs with AMD GPUs:

[View this post in your web browser. It contains formatting and images that don't appear in email.]

Updated to Mac OS Tahoe 26.3.1 and my Lightroom Classic will no longer detect people in photos. I was running LrC version 14.1.1. I figured that was the issue so I updated to the newest LrC version 15.2.1. 

Metal: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M

By “detect people”, I think you’re referring to people masking and not face recognition?

About ten others with Intel Macs and AMD GPUs have reported that people masking has stopped working with the latest Mac OS and LR. 

The sequence of updates you report strongly suggest that Mac OS 26 has released a buggy AMD GPU driver that’s tripping up LR’s people masking.

For over a year, LR's AI commands have been tripping over bugs in the graphics drivers for Intel Macs' Radeon 500- and 5000-series GPUs. The drivers in Mac OS 15 appeared to have addressed many of the issues, but prior to the reports about people masking, there has been a steady trickle of reports of other problems. It looks like neither Apple nor AMD care much about fixing driver bugs for seven-year-old GPUs from a manufacturer no longer selling to Apple on a platform Apple wants to go away.

​@Lalocakayak, which version of Mac OS were you running before you updated to 26.3.1? If you’re not sure, make your best guess.

Updated to Mac OS Tahoe 26.3.1 and my Lightroom Classic will no longer detect people in photos. I was running LrC version 14.1.1. I figured that was the issue so I updated to the newest LrC version 15.2.1. Unfortunately it still will not recognize people in the masking feature. It worked fine for me for many years and now nothing, I haven’t changed file type or the way I import photos so I believe it must have to do with my Mac update or Lightroom.  Any help is much appreciated. 

Apparently this info can be helpful  

Lightroom Classic version: 15.2.1 [ 202603161217-0bf813d9 ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en
Operating system: Mac OS 26
Version: 26.3.1 [25D2128]
Application architecture: x64
Logical processor count: 16
Processor speed: 2.4GHz
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
Adobe GSDK Version: 1.4.0.212

Power Source: Plugged In, 100%
Built-in memory: 16,384.0 MB
Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 2,429.3MB / 4,080.0MB (59%)
Real memory available to Lightroom: 16,384.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 1,407.9 MB (8.5%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 44,337.6 MB
Memory cache size: 275.1MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 18.2.2 [ 2512 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 380MB / 8191MB (4%)
Camera Raw real memory: 461MB / 16384MB (2%)

Cache1: 
Final1- RAM:358.0MB, VRAM:1,348.0MB, P1066652.RW2
NT- RAM:358.0MB, VRAM:1,348.0MB, Combined:1,706.0MB

Cache2: 
m:275.1MB, n:201.2MB

U-main: 97.0MB

Standard Preview Size: 3584 pixels
Displays: 1) 3584x2240

Graphics Processor Info: 
Metal: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M
Init State: GPU for Image Processing supported by default
User Preference: Auto
Enable HDR in Library: OFF
GPU for Preview Generation: Auto (S3_3)

Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic
Library Path: /Volumes/Stories/Lightroom/2026/2026.lrcat
Settings Folder: /Users/laurenbally/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

Installed Plugins: 
1) AdobeStock
2) Aperture/iPhoto Importer Plug-in
3) Flickr

Config.lua flags: 

Just to say that whatever critical bug fixes LR 15.2.1 may have fixed, this people masking issue we have been discussing was not one of them.  At least not for me!  How is the experience of other people on this thread?  Did LR 15.2.1 make any difference for anyone else?

Also having the same issue since latest update. No longer working in Photoshop (Camera Raw) either.

Hey, @thelightandlife. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll help you figure this out. Please share the system info from Lightroom from Help > System info > Copy and paste into a text document > Upload and attach here.

Have you recently updated Lightroom or the device operating system (macOS/Windows/iOS/Android)? Try using Lightroom Web (https://adobe.ly/40Dz11t) temporarily to check if the remove tool works as expected. Some other features won't be available on Lightroom Web. 

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

I am experiencing an issue with the “Remove People” feature in Adobe Lightroom. The option is available in my software, but it is not functioning as expected when I try to use it.

Despite multiple attempts, the feature either does not respond or fails to remove people from the image properly. This is affecting my workflow and productivity.

I have ensured that my software is updated to the latest version and have also tried restarting the application, but the issue still persists.

[View this post in your web browser. It contains formatting and images that don't appear in email.]

​@SweetPeaPhotog I just got off the phone with Adobe, they tried to help remotely but failed, they said that its one of the highest priority items to work on and that it should be fixed by mid to late march

I sincerely hope that’s true. But beware that historically, Adobe phone and chat customer support have a history reported here of saying highly inaccurate things about difficult technical issues, seemingly with the intention to close out a support call.

The Lightroom family usually releases every 8 weeks. So we’d expect to see LR 15.3 the week of April 20.  While it’s certainly possible Adobe would release a patch release (LR 15.2.1) sooner, they typically only do that for issues that severely impact much larger numbers of users.