P: Generative Remove Feedback (Lr Classic & Lr Eco)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

This post applies to Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom Ecosystem products.

Camera Raw feedback can be found here.

Generative Remove makes it easier to remove unwanted objects and distractions with a simple gesture, even on complex backgrounds. For more accurate results, be sure to include the object's shadow in your selection and/or expand its size. 

Detect Objects uses AI to find the objects underneath a brushed area. The masked areas will now appear larger than the Early Access version of this feature. You can also circle objects for quicker selection now. 

We have also updated the spot selection experience to make it easier to manage variations, switch the fill type, refine the selection area, or re-generate as needed. 

Batch updating is also now supported for Generative Remove spots. 

Try out the latest updates and share your feedback with us here. Please also include the following details in your post: 

• App version
• System details
• Example image(s) if you wish to share

Our team continually monitors this thread to track issues for future improvement. Thanks!

Lisa Ngo: Lightroom Product Manager

Posted by:

[johnrellis]

@CristaLee: "the tool failed to remove any of the selected elements."

After clicking Remove, make sure the Opacity slider is 100. A likely bug in LR sometimes sets it to 0.

[CristaLee]

Ok!  Thank you John!  I must be doing something wrong with it.  All the YouTube videos that I have seen the tool worked so well.  I will look for the opacity, it could be something as such that is making the tool not function for me.

[johnrellis]

@CristaLee, if the Opacity slider turns out to be set at 100 already, please post full-resolution screenshots of what you're seeing, including both the photo and the Remove panel.

[funny_MeadowB82D]

Generative Remove is often incredible, truly. Sometimes it fails miserably, with more complex indoor scenes. Removed some people and objects from photos of a motocross event and it was amazing. Tried to do that with photos of a basketball game, results were mixed, and required extensive manual refinements. My main gripe is how it interprets the initial selection of object to be removed. It highlights the object, but adds a huge buffer of selection around the object. So big that it MUST be reduced manually for the Generative Remove to do its best job. I would like to see the AI behind this tool identify the objects I select more cleanly and require little to no manual adjustments to the selection before clicking remove. My phone can do this! I know it will likely work much better, but please get more teams on this! Great tool to be sure!!

[johnrellis]

@funny_MeadowB82D: "My main gripe is how it interprets the initial selection of object to be removed. It highlights the object, but adds a huge buffer of selection around the object. So big that it MUST be reduced manually for the Generative Remove to do its best job."

I find it more productive simply to keep Detect Objects unchecked.  As you've observed, it too often works poorly, and it fails completely with skinny objects (poles and lines) and with objects near the edges of the photo.

[roberth62521040]

Updated my programs today. Applied changes and remove objects from my conference photos today. applied adaptive portrait changes. Looked at them again and the changes were deleted and that I needed to update them again. Waste of time because I have to have the photos loaded ASAP!

[johnrellis]

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@roberth62521040: "Applied changes and remove objects from my conference photos today. applied adaptive portrait changes. Looked at them again and the changes were deleted and that I needed to update them again."

To verify, are you seeing red dots next to "Basic", under the Remove tool icon, or both?

[roberth62521040]

Both - lrc. Sometime one or the other, other times both. Reapply, close
and the changes are gone.

[johnrellis]

@roberth62521040: "Both - lrc. Sometime one or the other, other times both. Reapply, close
and the changes are gone."

Most likely you have a corrupted .lrcat-data file, which occurs infrequently. The .lrcata-data stores the results (e.g. bit masks) computed from the AI commands. Try these steps:

1. In LR, do Edit > Catalog Settings > General > Show. That will open Windows File Explorer on the current catalog folder.

2. Exit LR.

3. Move the file <catalog>.lrcat-data to the Desktop.

4. Start LR.

5. In Library Grid view (not Loupe view), select all photos and do Photo > Develop Settings > Update AI Settings. That will recompute all the AI masks, which could take a while. 

This procedure has worked well for the other AI commands (Remove, masking, lens blur). Unfortunately, I just reported a bug in Update AI Settings with respect to Adaptive Color -- it won't recompute the effect of the profile unless there is another AI command (e.g. Remove) also applied to the photo.  So after step 5, you have to do these steps:

6. Exit LR.

7. Select all the photos with Adaptive Color applied.

8. Go to Develop. 

9. Toggle on the menu item Settings > Enable Auto Sync.

10. In the currently selected photo, set Profile to Adobe Color.

11. Set Profile back to Adaptive Color.

12. IMPORTANT: Toggle off Settings > Enable Auto Sync.

[ed_0993]

Why does the remove tool work well for a while, then stop working? This happened to me tonight as I'm editing important shots, and it's happened in the past. Very strange and frustrating. 

[johnrellis]

@ed_0993: "Why does the remove tool work well for a while, then stop working?"

Does it immediately work again after you restart LR?

[colinm39398726]

a great new release takes just a couple of minutes compared to having to keep switching to photopshop and back and still not getting as good results

[Koko B]

  I'd love to use it for the set of archival images I'm cleaning up. Unfortunately, It doesn't seem to be able to render/match the grain.       PS The new performance improvement in 14.2 seems to make the gen faster.  It also seems to dramatically slow the heal tool over 60 or so heals  

[Riju241992]

I have Purchased version of Adobe lightroom Mobile version. Android. 

Generative AI and object removal feature gives worst results than ever. Free image editors can achive far better than lightroom. Why should I purchase this waste tool for such a big cost per year. Can anybody explain? See the attached photo and you will underatand the reason for my frustration. WTF. This is 2025 and adobe is going downwards or what😤

[C.Cella]

@Riju241992 what were you trying to remove ?

[Riju241992]

A tree trunk in the background 

[johnrellis]

Your screenshot indicates you were trying to remove the tree trunk and that you had Detect Objects checked.

By unchecking Detect Objects and carefully selecting around the baby and man, LR did a pretty good job:

 

In general, Detect Objects doesn't work very well, especially on skinny objects and objects that touch the edges of the photo. I keep it unchecked.

It would be interesting if you could post the results of free image editors doing as well as this.

[Riju241992]

Dear,

nice work on the edit. I am happy to see that image wothout the tree trunk.

But I still dont know how you take the screen shot of selected area of the image. 

I am using light room mobile version, and there is no option to select like that. 😬. 

Once you draw any area and lift your hand its gone. It automatically starts removing once you lift your finger from the sceen.  I am sure you did it from some other environment. 😂 

As I mentioned I purchased Lightroom Mobile version. And using it in Android. 

 I removed the tree trunk with the help of a non purchased product. edited image attached. 

Thank you for the sentence "It would be interesting if you could post the results of free image editors doing as well as this. " 

It opened my eyes. I searched, asked my friends, and got an application which satisfies all my needs with just 800 Rs per year. So I Unsubscribed Lightroom which costs me 4400 Rs per year and delivers me pure  frustration. With the new app atleast I can feel that.. Oh I am not spending that much. 

Thank you for opening my eyes 😍

Happy editing. 

[johnrellis]

@Riju241992: "I am using light room mobile version"

I didn't realize that. In LR Mobile, you can uncheck the Detect Objects at the bottom of the screen, but there's no ability to add or subtract multiple brush strokes as you can with Lightroom Desktop or Lightroom Classic. So it's very difficult, if not impossible, to get good results on your photo using LR Mobile.

Glad you found an alternative that better meets your needs.

[Whispering_worldview8237]

I just used Generative AI to remove the partial image of a woman in a white shirt with sunglasses on her head standing in a line of cars.  Instead of removing her and generating new pixels of the cars, it created an entirely new Human Being!  A smiling, posing, young man in a white shirt! What the???

[johnrellis]

@Whispering_worldview8237: "I just used Generative AI to remove the partial image of a woman in a white shirt with sunglasses on her head standing in a line of cars.  Instead of removing her and generating new pixels of the cars, it created an entirely new Human Being!"

Make sure you select all parts of the woman, even if they're disconnected, and remove any shadows or reflections. Otherwise, Remove will try to match what's left. See this short article for details:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/generative-remove-replace/

Most complaints about Remove are addressed in the article. But if it doesn't help, please attach a full-resolution JPEG exported from the unmodified original photo (not a screenshot). With nearly every one of the many dozen problem photos posted here, we've been able to show how to quickly remove the desired objects.

[curt.gallery]

So weird, it works great in Photoshop. I remove a powerline tower in lightroom and it often creates a new one instead? How does this get out into the public? It is called the remove tool. It is not call the firefly image generation tool. I remove telephone polls, or try to, and it instead creates different ones. Is this going to be fixed any time soon I wonder? When it works it is lovely but why would they even allow it to generate new objects? Bizzare. 

[johnrellis]

@curt.gallery: "I remove a powerline tower in lightroom and it often creates a new one instead?"

Uncheck Detect Objects -- it doesn't work very well, especially with long, skinny objects and along the edges of photos. See this short article for how to remove objects more reliably:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/generative-remove-replace/

Most complaints about Remove are addressed in the article. But if it doesn't help, please attach a full-resolution JPEG exported from the unmodified original photo (not a screenshot). With nearly every one of the many dozen problem photos posted here, we've been able to show how to quickly remove the desired objects.

[colint81730785]

The issue I'm having is that I want to remove multiple different items, but the tool is not keeping the little circle / target available for use between clicks / selections.

[johnrellis]

@colint81730785: "The issue I'm having is that I want to remove multiple different items, but the tool is not keeping the little circle / target available for use between clicks / selections."

Are you using LR Mobile, LR Desktop, or LR Classic when you experience this?