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:

[imagesbyvanja]

Yes, I agree. To be able to selectively choose an area rather than having
the algorithm search the entire image would be excellent.

[keith@keithflood.com]

Just tried to remove the relections in this image but nothing changed when applied. Note, I removed/blured the people in the center of the image for privacy and they are not part of the reflections I am trying to remove. I tired Preview, Standard, and best with no change to the image. 

[Eric29489323q7t4]

Is there glass between the photographer and the subject of this photo? If not, remove reflections is unlikely to work.

[keith@keithflood.com]

Ok, interesting. The background of the city is part of the photo and I would say part of the subject so yes, the glass wall is between the photographer and the background subject. The people at the table in front of the glass wall are also subjects but the reflection is not affecting them.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

Please refer to the blog post to learn more about what kinds of reflections this tool is designed to remove. While in this photo you might feel that the subject includes the city in the distance, there will be a great many other photos where the windows fall in roughly the same location but there is nothing of interest behind them and the reflections are even desirable. This tool assumes that there is a sheet of glass that covers your whole view because otherwise there is no way to determine what reflections you intend to remove. No matter how smart, AI cannot know the intent of the photographer. That is why you get failures like these. In the future we hope to allow users to specify regions where they would like to remove reflections, which would allow you to communicate your intention, but that is not supported today. 

[carmenr51133300]

Reflection Remove Fail

Hello,

I have the same problem as many here. But I can't find a post that offers a solution.
Every attempt to use the reflection removal tool results in a pixel mess - see attachment.

My system is Windows 11 Pro, 32 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen processor, with Radeon graphics.

I've installed all cloud updates. I would appreciate any support.

Regards

[javier_9580]

No sirve en reflejos en los lentes de las personas, ahi no pasa nada. 

[Vince_Tarry8964]

How can we use this to get rid of reflections in glasses when doing headshots? I tried and made eyes very blury

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Not designed to do that so no, you can't. At least not yet.

[Conrad_C]

The Adobe blog post about this feature is called Removing window reflections in Adobe Camera Raw, because it's about window reflections for now (large areas), not small reflective areas. The good news is, the same blog post says, near the end:

We're also looking into removing small reflections like eyeglasses and distant windows.

So eyeglass reflections are something they’re interested in, they just haven’t worked that out yet. Maybe in a future verrsion…

[WendysPhotos]

Did not work at all on this image.  Tried it with 0 editing. Tried it with editing. Tried it bringing it in straight from source file and tried it through lightroom.   Nothing.

[WendysPhotos]

Apparently it will not laod the image here either.  I change to small JPG, but have the 21MB raw file

[Eric29489323q7t4]

This is a photo of a porch with a door. The subject is the porch and the door. The subject is not the drapes behind the door, so there is not glass blocking the entire view of your subject. The tool has therefore (correctly) determined that there is not glass covering your field of view, and blocking your entire view of the subject. It has therefore (correctly) removed nothing from the photo. As noted in the blog, in the future we are considering to remove reflections from small objects in the scene. For now, though, that is not desirable because doing so without any user input would destroy most photos—reflections are ubiquitious and are usually desirable. 

[Thom38672558yhh6]

The Remove reflections beta doesn't seem to work on eyeglasses, FWIW 

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Not designed to do that so no, you can't. At least not yet.

[Jason.0419]

If we're just giving feedback on the new reflection removal tool, I would likew to see an option to mask where we would like the effect applied so if there is certain parts we do not or we want to invert the effect in certain areas, we could.

[jack madsen 3]

it would be nice if you could select an area where the reflection is for a more control with removal of the reflection.

[Jacqueline28632669vrwf]

Too bad that removing reflections doesn't wordk on glasses

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Not yet I'm afraid but maybe in the future.

[Jacqueline28632669vrwf]

I hope so!

[Emi McDonald]

I would love to see the brush tool work on the new window reflections feature. Also, as a car photographer who accidentally forgot her CP filter at home, this feature would be insanely helpful for automotive photos. 

[Andrew21793876k46u]

Hi I'm getting an "Unkown Error" message when trying to use the Relections tool.camera Raw filter correctly opens the screen and allows access to the Reflections tool however it gets to 9% then nothing untill the "Unknown Error" message pops up. Any Thought?

[Association37827]

I had moderate expectations about this tool, and for the first time I finally had a good opportunity to use it but it changes basically nothing to the image to the image here attached. The before/after show the exact same image, and the "-100" difference is almost completely black.
Is there anything wrong with this image ? I thought it was a typical example.

[Eric29489323q7t4]

This reflection region is just over 50% of the image width. While I agree that it is desirable for this reflection to be removed, the tool may be less consistent in these situations. It is designed to remove reflections that cover your camera's field of view. You can crop the image, save as a tiff/png/jpeg, and try removing reflections from that. Just note that such compressed images might not work as well as RAW.

[jpm_2200]

Very good job! Congratulations to the team