P: Reflection Removal feedback (CR & LrClassic)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

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:

[brian704]

I tried on this image with an obvious reflection and there was NO change to the image - If I lower the slider, I just have a black frame. - Windows system

I tried to crop the image so it only contained the reflection, but the result was the same

[Eric29489323q7t4]

You will get best results on RAW images. Cropping JPEG/HEIC files can improve the result on those files, but RAW formats will always work best. When using RAW, cropping doesn't affect the result; you should zoom in. As with all features, there may sometimes be cases when it does not work. We are continuing to improve the tool, so do stay tuned for updates.

[Susan Allan Photography]

Not all of the reflections were removed from the image, only those on the right side.  This has left a rather large amount of reflections which need to be removed from the left side.  However the tool would not allow a further rework, as the box was already ticked and it seems to consider the work as complete.  

[Susan Allan Photography]

Hi , can you please remove this reply as it was meant to go in as a new post!

Thanks.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

Yes, sorry to see that. Is the original a RAW image? Results will be better on RAW. The tool might not always succeed, but we are actively working on it, so stay tuned for updates. 

[kastalia67_s]

Hello from France, I tried all options of the reflection feature, with not luck. The picture does not change at all. (Preview, Standard, Best, and cursor at full right (+100) or at center (0) gives same image. I tried also cropping to see only the window of the car, same result. There is NOT ANY change in the reflections !

[Eric29489323q7t4]

This is a photo of a car, the scenery behind the car, the street, and a person sitting inside of the car. There is not a pane of glass between the camera and those things. The tool has therefore correctly detected that there is not a pane of glass that covers the field of view of the camera, and has therefore removed nothing from the photo. This is the intended and desired result for the tool. In the future we hope to support removing reflections from small objects. Please check out the Adobe blog to learn more about this tool. 

[kastalia67_s]

With my eyes I can clearly see a pane of window between the camera and the girl in the car (let me be clear : the girl is seen through the rear window of the car - the window is fix and cannot be opened). This is a RAW photo by the way. So I don't understand your statement "the tool has therefore correctly detected that there is not a pane of glass that covers the field of view of the camera". Do I speak to a human or an IA here ?

[Eric29489323q7t4]

The field of view of the camera includes everything that the camera can see. There is a pane of glass that covers the woman, but it does not cover the field of view of the camera. This is a small pane of glass that is part of the scene. This tool is designed to solve cases when you are (for example) sitting on a bus and taking a picture out the window. The window covers your entire field of view. 

The tool does not remove reflections from small panes of glass (like small car windows) because quite often those are not reflections that people want to remove. There is currently no way for you to tell the tool which surfaces you want to remove reflections from, and it can't read your mind. It therefore assumes that you are trying to look through a pane of glass that covers your view.

Please check out the Adobe blog to learn more about the tool and our future plans for it.

[JohnDG Photography · Accepted solution]

I tried to cut part of the picture, so only a small part of the window remains. Feed only the small part to the reflection removal and paste it back into the original picture, using Photoshop. It's not perfect, but ..
I noticed doing this, the reflection feature reacts differently than using the entire picture. With the entire picture I can't get any reflection off either.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

John, this is exactly the expected result. If you finish the image to PNG/TIFF/JPEG format, and then crop, the tool cannot know that you cropped the photo, and so it will focus on just the cropped region. That will make the reflection fill the field of view, and so the tool will work better. But do note that conversion to PNG/TIFF/JPEG also makes removing reflections more difficult—you will always get better results on RAW if you can capture RAW in the situations for which the tool is intended to be used. If/when you want to handle photos like this one of the car, you can use a compositing workflow like the one you demonstrated here. That will naturally require you to blend the edges of your cropped area back into the original image. Photoshop is an ideal tool for such manual editing tasks; Adobe Camera RAW is not. That said, we do plan to support removing reflections from small panes of glass in RAW in the future. Please stay tuned.

[JohnDG Photography · Accepted solution]

well Eric, since I tempory used the jpg picture kastalia67_s provided, I had to work in jpeg. I only shoot RAW and I only use Ps. Just wanted to see what it would do if I narrowed the view to just a part of that car window like it was one whole picture. And it did work. 
If I can use that technique with a RAW, the result can only be better.
Looking forward to see support for small panes of glass in RAW.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

Hi John, what you did was the only way. One must crop in PNG/TIFF/JPEG because cropping a RAW does not affect the remove reflections tool—it still will see the whole image.

[FitzFoto]

Duplicate the raw image, crop in ACR and save the cropped image by clicking Done.  Then apply the remove reflections tool.  [ @JohnDG Photography ]

[Eric29489323q7t4 · Accepted solution]

FitzFoto, that suggestion will not work. That crop will not change the RAW result. To remove reflections from a cropped region you must convert the RAW image to a PNG/TIFF/JPEG.

Here is one workflow:

1. Open the image in Lightroom.

2. Make a virtual copy, and crop the virtual copy

3. Export the original and cropped image as TIFF files

4. Open the original and cropped TIFF in Photoshop

5. Use the Camera RAW filter to remove reflections from the cropped image

6. Copy the clean, cropped image into the original

7. Align the cropped content so it overlaps properly in the original

8. Apply a layer mask to the reflection-removed, cropped image to blend any edges with the original.

You can also use Lightroom's "Edit In..." method.

[kastalia67_s]

Hi guys,
1. I can send you the RAW image if needed (but the size of my RAW is 49850 Kb, and the max limit to send in here is 47Mb, so...).
2. I tried the following without any positive result.
2.1. Open LRC, and modify the RAW image in PS
2.2 With the (polygonal) lasso, I selected the edges of the rear window
2.3 Added to a new layer
2.4 Menu Filter / Camera RAW filter (not Camera module)
2.5 Go to Reflections suppress and tried the PREVIEW and the BEST options
2.6 No positive result (in fact nothing changed in the image)
See screen capture along

[kastalia67_s]

I made also this test using an exported TIFF file, but the result is each time the same... No change at all in the cropped selection of the car window.

[FitzFoto]

You will need to explain your reasoning to me.  The cropped raw image is not the entire image, and a reflection was removed from it when I tested one of my images.

[Eric29489323q7t4 · Accepted solution]

Kastalia, please precisely follow the steps I enumerated. It will work. There are other variants that will work, but not what you did. 

FitzFhoto, as you probably know, when you crop a RAW photo in Lr or ACR, the underlying image is not modified. Specifying a crop simply tells Lr/ACR how to render that RAW image onto your screen. The remove reflections tool operates before the crop is applied by Lr/ACR when your RAW is rendered onto your screen. Why? There is a long list of usability issues that come up, which are beyond the scope of a forum post. That said, the Adobe blog does state that we plan to support removing reflections from small regions in the future. Please stay tuned. 

[kastalia67_s · Accepted solution]

Hi Eric,
I just tested your steps, precisely.
Screen capture shows you a little reflection suppress in part of the girls face.
Well it is the best I could achieve up to now.

Here are the steps :

1. Open the image in Lightroom.

2. Make a virtual copy, and crop the virtual copy

3. Export the original and cropped image as TIFF files

4. Open the original and cropped TIFF in Photoshop

5. Use the Camera RAW filter to remove reflections from the cropped image

6. Copy the clean, cropped image into the original

7. Align the cropped content so it overlaps properly in the original

8. Apply a layer mask to the reflection-removed, cropped image to blend any edges with the original.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

Thanks Kastalia. Yes, results will not always be perfect, and PNG/TIFF/JPEG will not work as well as RAW—but you cannot use RAW in this workflow. We are continuing to work on the tool, so please stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, you can try different crops to see if you can get a better result. 

Note that "best" quality just makes your result more detailed. It won't affect the overall success of the tool. So you can use lower quality settings to quickly check if the tool will work as you wish on your crop.

[kastalia67_s]

Ok Eric,
Thanks a lot for all your time on this, as well as other guys from Adobe.
I understand now how the reflection tool is working. I understand also that there's a path to get better results in the future for "small objects" (may be selectable with the brush or so...).
One suggestion : if you could increase the file size for uploading in this forum, as camera RAW files become bigger and bigger (my R5 gives a mean value of 46Mb RAW files - CR3 - for 6000 files).
We can close this thread. Thanks again.

[FitzFoto]

Then please explain why the original 61Mpx raw image is now less than 1/3 the size (and is still a raw image) when cropped and saved..

[kastalia67_s]

The original file is a CR3 and the size is exactly 48.6 MB (or 51 045 462 bytes).
Through the several tries, I was asked to test export to TIF files. So I put here a screen shot of the list of files used, if that can help answer your question.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

FitzFoto, I'm not 100% clear about what you are doing. That said, any workflow that discards pixels so they cannot be recovered is not a RAW editing workflow. If one opens a RAW with Adobe Camera RAW,  applies a crop, and clicks "done," the crop information is stored with the original file. Then if you open the same RAW file again, you can remove the crop and see the whole original image. 

If you are using the DNG format, note that saving a DNG does not guarantee that an image is RAW. For example, it is possible to save JPEGs in DNG format. So, if you are saving as DNG, its possible that you've used a workflow that produced a finished image (not a RAW one), and that was subsquently saved as DNG.