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58

P: Reflection Removal feedback (CR & LrClassic)

Adobe Employee ,
Nov 05, 2024 Nov 05, 2024

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:

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
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correct answers 16 Correct answers

New Here , May 13, 2025 May 13, 2025

I think I figured it out - it was a reflection in a window in the background that  couldn't be removed. When I did a test shot through a window, it worked well. 

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Contributor , Jun 28, 2025 Jun 28, 2025

Are you sure you're using the 'best' setting and not 'preview'? Preview will certainly show you a blurry pic. But on certain images, reflection removal removes too much, and you get a muddle. Adjusting the intensity slider can help. 

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Community Expert , Jul 07, 2025 Jul 07, 2025

Removing eyeglass reflections is a goal Adobe mentioned in their blog post from last December (Removing window reflections in Adobe Camera Raw), so at least we know they’re interested in working on it. 

 

Adobe-remove-reflections-blog-post-eyeglasses.png

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Community Expert , Jul 07, 2025 Jul 07, 2025

Those results are consistent with a lot of the reports in this thread…it works fine on recent computers (for Macs, that means Apple Silicon M1 through M4 work great), but there seems to be a problem with the graphics drivers for the GPU in some Intel Macs, and this feature relies heavily on the GPU. Because Mac graphics drivers are supplied by Apple, it might need a macOS update to get fixed. But we never know exactly what Apple will fix in the next macOS update, so no guarantees.

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Contributor , Jul 20, 2025 Jul 20, 2025

Did you by any chance just use the 'preview' mode instead of the best mode? A lot of people have been making that error, and the preview mode is intentionally low res.

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Explorer , Aug 02, 2025 Aug 02, 2025

Seems Quality is on "preview". Try setting it on "best".

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Explorer , Aug 12, 2025 Aug 12, 2025

Eric,

do I understand it well the reflections will only be removed when the glass plate fills the whole frame of the picture. As it won't remove reflections from a windows that's part of a larger picture. 

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Explorer , Aug 14, 2025 Aug 14, 2025

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.

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Explorer , Aug 15, 2025 Aug 15, 2025

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.

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Adobe Employee , Aug 15, 2025 Aug 15, 2025

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 int

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Adobe Employee , Aug 15, 2025 Aug 15, 2025

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 th

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Community Beginner , Aug 15, 2025 Aug 15, 2025

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.

...
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Explorer , Aug 16, 2025 Aug 16, 2025

That explains, why it removed some of the reflections in my workflow. I didn't actually crop the picture. I marked the area, copied, created a new image and paste only that part. So, it had no other information of a larger picture when I applied the reflection removal.
Then I copied the result back to the original picture and aligned it.

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Community Expert , Aug 20, 2025 Aug 20, 2025

That’s expected…the feature is currently designed to remove reflections in a window filling the entire image frame between camera and subject. Eyeglasses only cover a small area of the frame so they aren’t handled yet. But in the original Adobe blog post announcing reflection removal, they did say they’d like to handle eyeglasses in a future update.

 

Since the blog post was published last December they did add support for some non-raw formats, extended the feature to Lightroom, and just introdu

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Community Expert , Sep 09, 2025 Sep 09, 2025

We can all see the reflections in the floor, but from what Adobe has said throughout this thread and in their blog post, the feature is currently designed to more clearly reveal what’s showing behind the reflections in a large transparent glass window covering the entire frame. Although they might cover more use cases later.

 

Removing the reflections from the floor with the current version of this feature wouldn’t be expected to reveal anything behind the floor, because the floor isn’t supposed

...
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Explorer , Sep 15, 2025 Sep 15, 2025

Not always, but it's better on RAW pictures as they contain more detail information.
But if the glass plate with the reflection doesn't cover the whole image, it doesn't work on RAW either.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 10, 2025 Sep 10, 2025

Since I'm trying to be helpful after my 'preview' mistake, here's an example of a poor result.

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New Here ,
Sep 11, 2025 Sep 11, 2025

The reflection removal has failed in JPEG. Is this always the case?

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Explorer ,
Sep 15, 2025 Sep 15, 2025

Not always, but it's better on RAW pictures as they contain more detail information.
But if the glass plate with the reflection doesn't cover the whole image, it doesn't work on RAW either.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 15, 2025 Sep 15, 2025

Hopefully this wonderful feature can be tweaked to being able to apply the effect to selected areas not just the entire image.  I shoot sports and recently noticed some of the players have plastic shields over the top part of the face protection in front of the helmet.  So in certain lighting conditions I get a reflection that partially obscures their eyes, would be great in certain instances to be able to remove that.  When I try the current implementation even on 'best' setting it does not alter the image.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 16, 2025 Sep 16, 2025

Terrific photo. We are continuing to improve this feature, so stay tuned for updates. Your suggestion is noted.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 16, 2025 Sep 16, 2025

This feature doesn't work for me - even in Best mode...   Zero happens after it processes - no change to the reflection

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 16, 2025 Sep 16, 2025

This usually happens when folks try to remove reflections from small window panes in the scene. This tool is designed to remove reflections from windows that cover your camera's entire field of view. If you can share your photo, I can check if it is the kind of photo that the tool is designed for.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 16, 2025 Sep 16, 2025

Thanks, see my post above I attached a photo example, it was of a football player whose clear plastic eye shield and its reflection, which partially obscured the player's eyes.   I figured it would not (and it did not) so am submitting a 'it would be cool if in the future...." comment.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 17, 2025 Sep 17, 2025
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Thanks. Suggestion received. Keep in mind that the quality setting will only increase the amount of detail in the result; it will not materially change the success. 

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