P: New AI-powered Generative Remove (Early Access) available across all surfaces.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

This post applies to Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom Ecosystem products.
Post Camera Raw feedback here

This thread is now closed. Please update to LrC 14.x or LrD 8.x. If you wish to provide feedback, please go to the new article.

The Lightroom team is sharing an early look at Generative Remove, which makes it easier to remove unwanted objects and distractions, even on complex backgrounds, with a simple brush stroke. Generative Remove is powered by Firefly AI.

How to use Generative Remove on a desktop:

• You can find Generative Remove under the newly renamed Remove panel (aka “Heal”).
• Make sure the “generative AI” checkbox is enabled before you start brushing (note: when unchecked, Lightroom will use Content-Aware Remove to fill your brushed spots). 
• By default, you will be given a moment to refine your selection with an add or subtract brush. Remember to include shadows for a more accurate result! You can also skip this step by holding down ‘CTRL’ on windows or ‘CMD’ on mac as you finish your brush stroke. 
• Once you’re ready to apply and have accepted the terms, Generative Remove will use Firefly AI to remove your distractions and intelligently fill in the space that’s left by the removed objects. 
• Note: stable internet connection is required to use this feature.
• Generative Remove also lets you choose from multiple variations, so you can pick the one you like best, giving you full creative control. 
  
  Checkout the FAQ and Best Practices

Please give it a try and share feedback and/or report variations in this community forum. It would greatly help to include details like which app you are using (i.e., Lightroom Classic or Camera Raw) and other system details. Our team will continually monitor this thread to track issues to improve the future experience.

Lisa Ngo: Lightroom Product Manager
Posted by: Rikk Flohr 

Update:

Here are some tips if you are having issues with the feature replacing your object instead of removing it. 

• Enlarge your selection - if your brush stroke is too tight, you will have unexpected results.
• Remember that removing an object means painting over it, its shadow, its reflection, and any non-contiguous pieces. If you leave behind a shadow, a reflection, or a disconnected piece (e.g., a hand on a shoulder), the AI will attempt to create something to cast the shadow, reflect, or complete the unbrushed discontinuous item. You can avoid these issue by following the guidance provided in this linked tutorial. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/generative-remove-replace

The recommended order for applying edits is:

1. Denoise 
2. Heal (includes Generative AI Remove)
3. Crop (includes traditional Cropping, Lens Correction, Transform, or any operation changing the geometry of the image, including round-tripping to PS to use Gen-Expand)
4. Global Edits
5. AI Selective edits (Sky, Person, etc)
   
   If you deviate from that, you may see the removed object remain as a ghost image. If this occurs, you will have to use Update AI Settings, which can be found under the Develop module 'Settings' menu.

[recorpac]

So far so good

[umlautnord]

I'm running into some issues with LrC's Develop module not always displaying/rendering changes to Gen AI Remove settings, e.g. opacity. This seems to only crop up when modifying some overlapping gen AI remove areas. The changes are properly reflected in LrC Library previews after a few moments, and everywhere in Cloud products (LrD/LrM/LrW) once synced. The changes are also properly reflected in exports of the image from LrC. 

The only semi-fix I have found is quitting and reopening LrC—that will get Develop to properly display opacity as defined. However, it also requests a reupdate of AI settings at that point, which recomputes/alters some of the Gen AI in the image. You can then choose the previous history step before "update AI settings." That gets you back to the Gen AI versions you had, at the opacity you actually specified, without any AI errors.  But, you're then back to the same original issue, as further opacity changes will again not render in Develop.

I realize overlapping Gen AI Remove areas is probably not an intended usage. I'm using the overlaps because I'm getting some interesting abstract artistic results. Which I realize also isn't an intended usage. But stiill: LrC Develop should render settings properly, as everything else does—and as LrC will export.

In LrC, I have tried saving metadata to file, and tweaking other develop settings. Nothing other than quitting and re-opening seems to force LrC to reevaluate the opacity on some of these areas in Develop.

Unfortunately for troubleshooting, the issue is inconsistent on different areas in different snapshots of the same image. If relevant, most/all of the removal areas were probably applied in LrD or LrM. I've created various snapshots in LrC from versions synced down from the cloud; some of them have issues, some of them don't.

Broadly, my fix has been to just work with any artsy overlapping Gen AI Removal in LrD or LrM. If I create snapshots in LrC, I'm safe editing things other than the Gen AI Remove areas.

--

Primary image I'm having trouble with is an HEIC, HDR editing enabled. Full file lives in the cloud, not just a smart preview. There are usually no requests to update AI settings other than when quitting and reopening LrC as described above.

macOS 14.5 on MBP 2020 13" M1 with LrC v13.4 and LrD v7.4.1

iOS v17.5.1 on iPhone 12 with LrM v9.3.1

[John R Ellis]

@umlautnord, the behavior you describe does sound like Remove is not operating as intended by the developers (i.e. a true bug under Adobe's definitions).  I suggest you submit a separate bug report following these guidelines:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/how-do-i-write-a-bug-report/idi-p/12386373 

Include the sample photo you're using, a written step-by-step and a full-resolution screen recording (not a phone video) showing the detailed steps you took:

https://www.descript.com/blog/article/how-to-screen-record-on-windows 
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102618

If the files are too big to attach to your post, you'll have to upload them to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar and include the sharing link.

I understand this is a lot of work. But having worked with Adobe for many years, I know they're much less likely to pay much attention unless they can immediately reproduce the problem (unless many, many people report it).  

[umlautnord]

Oof, yes. I will try to pull this together. As I said, it doesn't always happen, but, since you think it sounds like a true bug I'll work on it. Thanks for flagging/the encouragement, @John R Ellis .

(Is there a way to share the image file itself with Adobe folks without making it public?)

[John R Ellis]

@umlautnord: "Is there a way to share the image file itself with Adobe folks without making it public?"

You could write in your bug report that they should ask you privately for a link. But that could make it a little less likely they'll look at it carefully. Better if you have a test image you could share publicly.

[umlautnord]

Thanks!

[umlautnord]

Here's a complete post on this behavior written in a bug report style, so that it's directly linked in this thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/generative-ai-removal-areas-only-updati...

h/t @John R Ellis for the encouragement

[Andy Chua Photography]

The Generative Ai Tool on Lightroom is definitely better than the Heal/Clone tool but its still further off the remove tool in Photoshop. The remove tool on photoshop works well 85% of the time. Remove tool on Lightroom is a 50/50, I hope I could have better result in Lightroom for removing simple stuff without creating another tiff file in photoshop.

[Ian Lyons]

It would be helpful if you could give specific example of the issue you're having with LrC AI Generative Remove

[glenn2001]

Here’s an example: suppose I have a photo that has a trash can on the left side and a light pole on the right. I want to remove both. Let’s say I remove the trash can first. If I immediately try to remove the light pole, I can’t. The tool doesn’t select anything. I have to exit the tool, say by selecting the masking tool, then reselect the remove tool. Then I can select the pole. I should be able to remove as many objects as I want while the remove tool is active.


Glenn

[glenn2001]

The remove tool is excellent! Two points:

I found that you need to crop after you remove an object.  If you crop before removal, the removal doesn't work because it still sees part of the object.  You need to tell people this.

Also, I don't see how I can run consecutive removals on different parts of a photo without closing the tool, opening a different tool, and then going back to the remove tool.  If there is a quicker way to run consecutive removals, please let me know; if not, add one!

Thanks

[John R Ellis]

@glenn2001: "I found that you need to crop after you remove an object.  If you crop before removal, the removal doesn't work because it still sees part of the object.  You need to tell people this."

Agreed. Adobe modified the top post of this thread to link to this tutorial, which explains the crop issue and other issues for removing rather than replacing:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/generative-remove-replace/

But I know that most people aren't going to see that.

Note that there are other ways pixels can get cropped out but still be visible to Remove: Lens Corrections and Transform.  So always disable Lens Corrections and Transform and undo any Crop before applying Remove.  (For some older cameras, LR / Camera Raw also performs a hidden crop, e.g. where the sensor records 6024 x 4024 but LR / Camera Raw automatically crop it to 6000 x 4000, but there's nothing that can be done about that right now, even though it can affect removing objects near the edges.)

[John R Ellis]

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@glenn2001: "I don't see how I can run consecutive removals on different parts of a photo without closing the tool, opening a different tool, and then going back to the remove tool. "

You don't have to open a different tool. Just close the Remove tool by clicking the Edit button at top or the Close button at the bottom of the Remove panel. Then reopen Remove:

I agree it's a klutzy UI design -- I accidentally converted Clones to Remove mode a few times. But the former incarnation of the tool (Heal) worked the same way -- if you applied a Clone and then clicked Content-Aware Remove, the Clone would be converted to Content-Aware. I wonder how many times I did that and never noticed (since it happened instantly)?

[Nathan S Hamilton]

even with the tips from the additional article, it still adds something instead of completely removing.  I can go into PS Beta and completely remove using the same image as needed

[John R Ellis]

@Nathan S Hamilton: "even with the tips from the additional article, it still adds something instead of completely removing.  I can go into PS Beta and completely remove using the same image as needed"

Please attach a full-resolution JPEG export of the original photo here and call out which objects you're trying to remove. That will allow Adobe and others to better understand the issue.

[Suri38338874itvb]

This software is simply incredible! I had a beautiful portrait that was ruined from a yellow traffic light sticking out of the subject's head ever so slightly but completely throwing off the photo. I had no expectations whatsoever when I selected the area and hit generate. I audibly gasped when it perfectly removed the sign yet kept every flyaway hair from the subject's head perfectly intact, although it did add some extras resulting in some more volume, which is fine, and filling in the gaps with the same green scenery as the rest of the image. I am thoroughly impressed. 

Well done Adobe!!

[willemientje]

Sometimes great but also sometimes by far not so good as when it's done in Photoshop. I tried to remove a stem from a plant at the edge of my image  but it replaced with practically the same stem. But when it works it's great that one doesn't have to hop over to photoshop. 

[John R Ellis]

@willemientje: "I tried to remove a stem from a plant at the edge of my image  but it replaced with practically the same stem."

This occurs when there are pixels cropped out due to Crop, Lens Corrections, or Transform. Remove looks at all the pixels, cropped or not. So temporarily undo the Crop and disable Lens Corrections and Transform, then apply Remove, then re-enable Crop, Lens Corrections, and Transform. See this article for more details:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/generative-remove-replace/ 

But if that doesn't help, please attach here a full-resolution JPEG export of the original (unmodified) image.

[Wisco Photog]

I LOVE IT!!!! Im a newborn, baby and family photog and Im always dealing with drool and spit on stains on clothes and it is a great time saver!!! If you brush in in the direction of the pattern it works 100%. So far I have not had an issue. THANKS for this!!! If you do it in smaller sections its perfect. So far so good!!! 

[caring_listener15C2]

I am a full time photographer, I use Generative Remove for lighting corrections ( distracting shadows and spill )on set for live theatre. It works amazingly, saving me time and saving the the shot where everyone is perfect "except for the distracting "....  Not perfect yet, however, so much quicker and easier to make the correction in lightroom than exporting into Photoshop and the clone tool would take longer trying to find the matching pattern. angle etc.

An example is when the theatre black out blinds got bumped during a dress rehearsal and resulted in a light streak across the carpet in a drawing room scene...   AI matched the pattern in the carpet excellently.

 LC

[ThierryH]

I did more tests with respect to the guidelines. I wanted to remove/replace something along the picture's border e.g. replace the white triangle (bottom-left) with the expected tent rope.

I imported the raws in LrC using a preset with lens corrections (default). Unchecking those wouldn't really help: LrC is replacing the content with a similar white item most of the time.

I imported the raw again and without any crop nor transformation, LrC is more likelly to replace the white triangle with some kind of tent rope. While there are examples on the picture to relate to, the results are weird most of the time.

Bug: In all of the cases, LrC won't initially select the whole selected area, espacially at the picture borders. I need to re-select part of it with the Mask Refinement brush.

Note: moving the Heal source, its content does not always appear in the destination. Heal and Clone do not always find similar content. Implementing Alt+Click (cfr. PS) might help?

 

Tip: Like before, it helps to choose the better result and to use the (e.g. Remove) tool again, instead of clicking Refresh again.

Note: While the 1024 pixel limitation can be overcome in PS, this limitation can't be in Lr. It will only be useful in blurred and darkened areas.
It might be useful to have a Select Object button and a Remove/Replace switch to solve all of this post's related issues.

Thanks a lot.

[John R Ellis]

@ThierryH: "replace the white triangle (bottom-left) with the expected tent rope. I imported the raws in LrC using a preset with lens corrections (default). Unchecking those wouldn't really help: LrC is replacing the content with a similar white item most of the time."

When an object  along the edge of a raw photo is consistently replaced by variants of the object rather than surrounding background, that invariably indicates there are hidden pixels. Using the JPEG you attached, the white triangle was replaced by grass and rope on the first try:

 

further indicating there are hidden pixels along the edge of the raw photo that Remove is matching.

In addition to Crop, Transform, and Lens Corrections (which you said you disabled), there's a fourth way of getting hidden pixels.  Many cameras produce raw files that are a little bit bigger than a standard aspect ratio. The Camera Raw engine then automatically crops the image to the standard ratio, and you can't undo that crop (most users don't even know about it). But Remove still looks at the cropped pixels and tries to match them.

For example, your Canon EOS 90D produces raws that are 6984 x 4660 (aspect ratio ~ 1.4987), and LR / Camera Raw automatically crops the raws to 6960 x 4640 (aspect ratio = 1.5 = 3:2). In your example photo, there is a 10 - 12 pixel-wide border that's been cropped out.  When you select the white triangle, unless you also select the hidden white pixels in that border, Remove will try to match them with white replacements.  

Luckily you can select those hidden pixels with careful brushing. See this post (linked from the tutorial article) for details on how to do that:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/more-complications-with-remove-and-cropped-pixels.5... 

If that doesn't help, then please attach the original raw here, or if the forum doesn't let you, upload it to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar and include the sharing link.

Adobe knows about the issue with Crop -- one of the tips shown in LR say to Remove then Crop. I don't know if Adobe is aware of the similar problems that occur with Lens Corrections, Transform, and the invisible initial Camera Raw cropping.  Removing distracting objects from the edges of photos is a very common use case, as exemplified by all the posts her, and currently Remove is very fussy about it.  Many or most users will never know to disable Crop, Lens Corrections, and Transform and then to select the automatically cropped borders.

[chelseyl46600433]

Currently very frustrated with the generative remove in Lightroom. 

I use it on a photo, go to the next and then when I go back to the one I used the generative remove on, it's not applied and is showing each spot as an error (with the exclamation point over each spot).

Has anyone had any issues with this? I've reset the preferences, changed the graphic driver preferences, and tried different computers. 

[John R Ellis]

@chelseyl46600433: "I use it on a photo, go to the next and then when I go back to the one I used the generative remove on, it's not applied and is showing each spot as an error (with the exclamation point over each spot)."

Do you get similar symptoms if you use AI masking (e.g. Sky or People masks)?

[chelseyl46600433]

I do! I just noticed that the same thing happens with masking. 

Say I use a radial grad to brighten a face and then subtract the background using the AI option. If I leave the photo and then go back to it, the radial grad is still there, but the AI subtraction from the mask is now gone.