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.

[John R Ellis]

The catalog file <catalog>.lrcat-data, where LR stores computed masks, is probably corrupted or not writeable for some reason, which has happened to a fair number of people in the last couple of years.  

1. Do Catalog Settings > General > Show, which will open Finder / File Explorer with the current catalog folder selected.

2. Exit LR.

3. In that folder, move the <catalog>.lrcat-data to your Desktop.

4. Restart LR.

5. In Library, select some of the affected photos and do the menu command Photo > Develop Settings > Update AI Settings. This will recompute the Generative Removes and AI masks.

Does the problem go away for those photos?  If so, then select all the photos in your catalog and do Update AI Settings -- it could take a while.

[chelseyl46600433]

You. Are. An. Angel! Seems to have worked like a charm! Thank you so much 🙂

[kapplegate44]

This feature is AMAZING. Nice job Adobe! Game changer in many ways.

[Pacoh]

I'm having trouble removing a dark rectangular area at the top left corner of an image.  Blue sky surrounds it.  It should be an easy task, but neither the new AI fill nor the older tools do a decent job of it.  Whether I select the entire rectangle or just a piece of it (with some surrounding sky included in either case), both remove and heal operations leave black patches in the sky an much of the leftmost portions of the image.   

A few times I have had the source area show up, but moving it does not solve the problem.   

[John R Ellis]

@Pacoh, please attach a full-resolution JPEG exported from the original (unmodified) photo.

[raikulipoika]

Hi,

enhoying the generative ai so far. For some reason it doesn't remove completely black / darck objects though. Cannot figure out why. 

[John R Ellis]

@raikulipoika, see this article for how to remove objects:

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

If that doesn't help, please attach here a JPEG exported from the original unmodified photo and a full-resolution screenshot of the results you're getting.

[porterhouse_89]

Works ok, but not well enough to replace PS, which ideally it should do.
A common issue I find is that the size of the brush will progressively get smaller with each click, despite me not touching the size slider or shortcut keys. Quite frustrating to then have to constantly re-size the brush with each click

[Ian Lyons]

@porterhouse_89 

The size of the brush reducing with each click of the mouse is a known bug.  It can be avoided by temporarily turning off Lens Correction and Transform.

[John R Ellis]

@porterhouse_89, building on Ian's reply, that bug affects all the Remove modes (Remove, Heal, and Clone) and isn't specific to just Generative Remove:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/camera-raw-bugs/p-retouch-circle-automatically-becomes-smaller-on-ima...

The symptoms have been reported for a year, and it's not clear why Adobe hasn't prioritized a fix (they rarely comment on such things).  Please add your upvote and a constructive opinion to the bug report.

[Ian Lyons]

My understanding is that the issue is also in Camera Raw and Lightroom Desktop, albeit not as obvious since they use different brush size scaling. The  actual fix needs to be made in Camera Raw. 

[John R Ellis]

@Ian Lyons : "The  actual fix needs to be made in Camera Raw. "

I think that's why the bug report is filed in the Camera Raw forum (and thus hard to find by LR Classic users).

[Ian Lyons]

@John R Ellis  "I think that's why the bug report is filed in the Camera Raw forum (and thus hard to find by LR Classic users)."

The original bug report was file by me internally in early May 2023, and referenced here in Lightroom Classic form in early July 2023. It was some months later (September 2023) that it was identified internally as being an ACR bug. It was then that it was moved to the ACR forum. Moving bugs such as this to ACR forum isn't unusual, but does make it difficult (i.e near impossible) for LrC users to find.

[Carthie]

Hallo,

nach meinen bisherigen Erfahrungen werden randständige Objekte, die nur unvollständig im Bild sind, oft nicht entfernt, sondern modifiziert, offenbar speziell, wenn sie mit kräftigen Farben einhergehen. Die Abwahl von "objektorientiert" erzeugt ähnliche Ergebnisse.

[John R Ellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

@Carthie: "peripheral objects that are only partially in the image are often not removed but modified"

The photo Original.jpg has been significantly cropped (2000 x 1333 from a 8256 x 5504 raw). So it appears that you were applying Remove to a cropped raw. The general rule is to Remove first, then Crop. See this article for details:

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

And see my recent post with screen recordings illustrating the same issue:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/strange-trouble-with-generative-erase-t...

When I use Remove on your Original.jpg (exported from the cropped raw and containing no cropped-out pixels itself), Remove removes the red object perfectly:

 

[SADDLE-UP]

Absolutely love it BUT, please make the CLONE stamp work the same as Photoshop (ie) select brush size, select item to clone, click alt and clone away!
The Lightroom clone stamp has a mind of its own! 
Thank you.

[John R Ellis]

@SADDLE-UP: "The Lightroom clone stamp has a mind of its own! "

Could you be more specific about how it's not working well for you?  Full-resolution screenshots (not phone pics) might be very helpful.

[SADDLE-UP]

John it acts more like spot removal and seems no different than the heal
brush – or am I using it wrong?
Click on the object you want to clone and it searches the picture for
something to replace it with UNLIKE Photoshop where I can actually CLONE
the item / object / from the spot you have clicked on.
Just make it the same tool as Photoshop!

[John R Ellis]

LR's Clone and Heal continue to work as they have before. Clone copies the pixels from the source and pastes them into the selected location, while Heal tries to intelligently match texture, lighting, and shading and blend the repaired pixels into the selected location. They automatically select the source initially, but you can change that source by dragging it with the mouse.  See the attached recording.

[colettes63259829]

Not really efficiate

[Mr_Frazier]

The new Generative AI feature is great. As we know in editing, time is EVERYTHING. The variations are very helpful. However, it would be awesome to feature objects/subjects such the masking option (e.g., select clothing, then allow AI to remove lint, whrinkles, etc.) Just a thought.  Thanks again for all you guys do to improve the interface. 

[defaultzsvgghqk9zs6]

Love the tool most of the time. But three times I was trying to get rid of a person and it replaced it with a cat? Like what? Second like ten times now when trying to remove an object it replaces it with a trash can. I even include the shadow when masking. I don't know why it seems to want to give me cats and trash cans. It is kind of funny but definitely needs to be fixed

[John R Ellis]

@defaultzsvgghqk9zs6: "But three times I was trying to get rid of a person and it replaced it with a cat?"

See this 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, so we and Adobe can see the issue in detail. If the forum won't let you attach it, upload it to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar and post the sharing link here.

[garnier91479932]

Absolutely impressed each and every time I have used this feature. Nails it first time the vast majority of times I have used it. Have only had to use refresh a couple of times. I like it!

[johnprose]

Does anyone have an issue when the Denoise facility is used after the remove tool?

i have found it resamples tge area with less impressive results to the initial action