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

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 is: Denoise - Heal (includes Generative AI Remove) - Crop/Edit - AI Selective edits. If you deviate from that you may see the removed object remains 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.

[Don3rdSE]

so you forced me to update LRC for the generative removal capacity and it still doesn't work. And, I can not go back to the old version. How am I supposed to function with a non-working "improvement"? 

[rdverb]

I reverted through the creative cloud app. Delete current version and
install last version

[umlautnord]

Hi Rikk,

I'm wondering if there's any clarity on situations where "refresh" vs. a forced "recompute" hits credits. It seems like every full "Refresh" (i.e. I don't like the 3 variations, try again, or I changed the size of the area) probably debits 1 credit, based on the FAQ page.

However, sometimes a tweak to an unrelated setting, or some other unknown change, will force a recompute/refresh of AI settings generally. That's obviously fine for the local AI stuff (context-based remove, AI masks) as it always has been, but it seems like it's probably hitting the server again for the generative piece. I may be incorrect there. Do you know if these forced recomputes will also hit as a credit?

Or, if there's no clarity now (which is fine), just something to pass along as a situation to figure out! It would be nice if it didn't.

Some other feedback to pass along re crediting is that as this is as a "removal" feature, it may require more small tweaks on the user end to get that removal right. This may be true after the feature is refined and released beyond Early Access. If each tweak hits another credit, that could add up.

It is beyond my comprehension of Firefly/generative AI processing in general, but it might be helpful if there's a way of partially leveraging local computing power and/or returning a less server-taxing "preview" for 0 credits. Newer chips might make this possible. I just don't know.

All theoretical, and kind of all depends on how the feature shakes out in the end, but thoughts I hope are all considered.

Many thanks.

[charlesf1182519]

The tool is a remove tool, but it replace what i want removed with something else, why?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@charlesf1182519  Make sure you are selecting any shadows, reflections or disconnected components as well as the object you are trying to remove.  Example:  If you take out a person but not their shadow, the AI will assume that something else needs to cast the shadow....

[nickdxin]

This is the solution for all those "it's replacing - not removing" issues. Sometimes it can be a very faint relection or shadow, but that's all it takes.

[Daniel31250007k20z]

This drives me insane! It does well for 75% of the removal then just insists on adding something in? Whyyyyy?

[GM Photography]

I have the same doubt. I am trying to remove a person from the picture, but the tool keeps replacing the figure with another person image. Tried it 3 times, and the system generated three different figures.

[umlautnord]

I will also add that even when I am very sure I have selected all of an object, and any shadow it may cast/other effect it may be causing, I get what seems more like a replacement than a removal more often than I'd like. If the object was blurry or amorphous, it really has trouble. Then, it often gives me a blurrier object that's a little similar to the surrounding background—but is still clearly a separate generated entity rather than "erased." The entire Gen AI area just becomes a bit of a smear.

(I do always try the traditional tools first, as they are sometimes more tuned to the kind of erasure I'm often looking for, but sometimes they're not powerful enough/can't handle a complex area. Gen AI definitely does better!)

[Frankie Lee]

I have the same issue.  The feature was removing well when I first started uisng it but when it first came out but now it is creates different variations of what I an trying to remove.  Yes I have certainly selected the whole object and anything connected with the object like a shadow.  Yes I have made my selection larger including plenty of surrounding area.  Yes I have tried any other suggestins mentiond here but nothing is working.  I had people and usually it takes three or four attemts before I finaly get a version that removed the person instead of adding some other person.  I have an out of focus rock in the lower corner of the photo and I could not get it removed despite 10 attempts. 

This is an issue in my honeset opinion.

[johnrellis]

@Frankie Lee: "I have an out of focus rock in the lower corner of the photo and I could not get it removed"

This sounds like you're editing a photo that you've cropped, enabled Lens Corrections, or applied Transform. As explained this help article, in those cases, some of the pixels of the rock could have been cropped out so you're not selecting all of them. Remove operates on the entire uncropped photo, so if you don't select all of the rock's pixels, Remove will try to match the unselected pixels.  Try temporarily disabling the crop, Lens Corrections, and/or Transform before apply Remove.

If this doesn't help, please attach the photo here so we and Adobe can see what the issue is.

[brianp36230040]

These suggestions did help. Thank you.

[johnrellis]

That's good. Hopefully Adobe will figure out a smoother way of handling cropped-out pixels.

[gezap72089862]

Great feature. The initial selection removed the object almost completely. Hitting the REFINE button did further processing and the end result was VERY GOOD. AMAZING.

[Lillo26862514x1oc]

Very Nice, TY Adobe 

[valeskajac]

Para mim não funcionou. O que fazer quando exibe esse erro em anexo? 

[Rick Spaulding -]

Error message translation...

"Generative Removal Failure
We have encountered a problem and are unable to complete your request at this time. Try again later."

[torstenv58075562]

I had the same problem, but after restarting the PC (Windows 11) the problem was solved.

[Z Fiedler]

I had the same problem

[Dash_Riprock]

Same problem.  Tried JPG images, Raw Images, get this message consistently on LRC.  Tried LR and similar message.  Tried restart nothing is working.  Always does a progress bar then ends with this error box.  Very frustrating.  Mac Studio with lots of memory and a very stable internet connection.  HELP.  Want to try to use this.

[Pat Hemlepp]

Same here. It worked perfectly this afternoon, but this evening when I tried to demonstrate the Generative AI Remove function to a photographer friend I keep getting the "failed" message. I've tried five different raw files and, yes, I do have internet access. Odd.

[Dash_Riprock]

Hmmm.  This morning it worked perfectly.  Maybe I just found a time when the firefly servers were down?

[brluigi]

same problem help!!!

[Christiano Lopes]

An excellent tool, but I encountered some items that Remove AI didn’t work on. For example, I tried to remove a hat from a photo and received a message saying that remove had failed, instructing me to check the tool’s guidelines. I didn’t understand why, as it was just a simple hat on a wooden log. 😊
See the photo added.

[timbutt2productions]

Not too bad. Photoshop still better. See outline marks on the removed object, which Photoshop does not leave in it's current iteration. So, not as smooth yet. But it's a great first step. I can't wait for this to get as good as the version in Photoshop.