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.

[waltweiss]

not trying to remove any nudes - trying to either convert portrait to landscape or remove things from the background.  The image above is not a nude.  It still gets the guidelines message.  Back to my origiinal comment - I don't need a tool that is going to censor what I can do with it.  What and how I edit is none of Adobe's business.  Especially when they block the tool on images that they mistakenly think violate their guidelines.  The only valid guidelines are the ones that say not to use the content to train ai.  So this "feature" is useless as far as I am concerned.  Who knows what they will censor next - or try to censor.  It is why I still use the classic versions instead of the online versions.  Its why I own other products that do the same thing as Adobe.

[Corniger]

Judging by today's apparent standards, it's absolutely, totally s3x1st and exploiting people who reluctantly took on a job they hate. Yes, I was being ironic. But take into account the bias AI has in general and each and everyone being pushed into either using it or perishing on the cemetary of yonder. Kids at school using Chat GPT to maximise their leisure time will automatically "write" biased content, thus unwanted opinions or "information" are being "rephrased" properly. And since your image may  or may not display a child in a wig and lots of makeup, like in Bad Grandpa, it can automatically be filtered out under said pretense.

That is exactly why it is still very important to have good Photoshop skills - or not even. Generative fill in places is a mere joke that can be surpassed even by average skills.

As I alluded to before - have you tried a temporary paintover on the "child"?

[waltweiss]

I think they fully intend to do it - just their implementation is flawed.  I don't need a censor monitoring what I edit - especially one that gets it wrong.

[John R Ellis]

@waltweiss: "I think they fully intend to do it - just their implementation is flawed. "

Here's what Scott Belsky (Creative Cloud Chief Product Officer, EVP) and (General Counsel, EVP) wrote in response to the blowup last month over their clumsy updating of Adobe's Terms of Use:

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/10/updating-adobes-terms-of-use 

"For content that you upload to our servers — like all content-hosting platforms — Adobe automatically scans content you upload to our services to ensure we are not hosting any c**** s***** abuse material (CSAM). If our automated system flags an issue, we will conduct a human review to investigate." [Words starred out due to bad filtering by the forum software!]

That states they fully intend to scan for CSAM material but the statement implies nothing else, though it doesn't say so explicitly. 

Regardless, it's clearly a bug if Generative Remove refuses to process images not containing CSAM. I encourage you to submit a bug report here:

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

The more original images you can provide in the bug report along with screenshots showing exactly what you selected, the more likely Adobe will be able to reproduce the problem and act on it. In general, if the team can't easily reproduce the problem they won't pay much attention, unless many people report the same problems.  

[colind66897557]

I would like to contribute to this. Adobe flagged an image of shirtless man on the beach as in violation of their content guidlines when I attempted to remove some objects using the generative remove. This is as mundane an image as one could expect, and Adobe precludes my use of their tools to modify it. 

I have the same complaints as @waltweiss. It is my image, taken with consent which, in any case, is not objectionable anywhere outside the most conservative societies. Why does Adobe need to decide what I can do with the image at large if the results it is generating aren't worthy of censure? The man already has no shirt, and I don't see how removing an unesirable object from the background and replacing it will wall has any bearing on his continued being shirtless. If Adobe was generating nudity I might be more sympathetic, but in this case they disrobement is already present and will remain unmodified. 

[Corniger]

He could be a very mature looking child, I'm guessing... 
Have you tried to paint over the person and then replace the layer?

[colind66897557]

The subject in question is very much an adult man. This post is more about providing feedback on the tool than looking for work arounds to the problem. I want it to reduce time spent, rather than require me to find ways around entirely arbitrary limitations 

[Corniger]

I was trying to be ironic. Apparently, according to a previous posting, all this comes down to protecting children. Which is understandable, but badly executed. 

In Photoshop, I didn't experience problems - I just tried, downloading a half n4ked man & bikini woman and saw no issues, so maybe this is a temporary thing in LR?

[colind66897557]

Apologies, my English is rusty. 

I assume the difference is down to Lightroom being RAW and PS raster, which results in two different Generative Systems being used. In that case, I would understand the differences. I just wish Adobe wasn't in a position to have the tools abused because it hurts all of us. Save the children seems overblown in most instances, but I wouldn't hold it past people to misuse these kinds of tools for all ages. It's happened. 

[John R Ellis]

@colind66897557: "Adobe flagged an image of shirtless man on the beach as in violation of their content guidlines when I attempted to remove some objects using the generative remove."

I think it's clearly a bug that Generative Remove refuses to work with this image. I encourage you to submit a bug report here:

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

The more original images you can provide in the bug report along with screenshots showing exactly what you selected, the more likely Adobe will be able to reproduce the problem and act on it. In general, if the team can't easily reproduce the problem they won't pay much attention, unless many people report the same problems.  

[colind66897557]

When I access the correct page for a bug report there is no way for me to proceed to filling one. I am not sure if this is an issue with my system or if some kind of incompetence is keeping me from it, but I can't figure it out. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@colind66897557 

A separate bug report is not necessary. Posting the image to this forum thread along with your information is sufficient. Individual bug reports for Early Access features are handled by posting here. 

[Jeff A. Goulden]

I'm just going to use the Photoshop remove tool until the Lightroom remove tool evolves.  I'm checking out of this conversation.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

How does one unsubscribe from this forum thread without unsubscribing from all Adobe communications?  I unchecked the box that says "Email me when someone replies" but that didn't work.

[John R Ellis]

Click "Unfollow" at the bottom of the top post. I've observed that it could take up to a day for that to take effect and sometimes it doesn't. (The forum platform leased by Adobe is mediocre at best.)

[Jeff A. Goulden]

Hmm, it was already set to unfollow but I'm still getting emails.  I don't recall clicking on it to follow.  I just checked the "Email me when someone replies" box.  I tried to upload a screenshot but no luck uploading.  It just stalled.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

I found that you can go to "manage your notification settings" and then to "Following".  Check the thread that you no longer want to follow and then click "--Unfollow".  That stops it from sending any more emails on that thread.

[Amy23951275i2q6]

Loving the feature so far. One issue I am having is removing railings. It seems to just replace it with similar railings, but I want the whole railing gone. You can see in the pictures below, masked in red is what I want removed. The second picture is what the generative fill comes up with. 

[John R Ellis]

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

@Amy23951275i2q6: "It seems to just replace it with similar railings, but I want the whole railing gone"

This is an example of Big Brother Adobe not allowing you to show an oblivious, love-struck couple about to fall off a deck without railings. 😆 

More serously, after a lot of experimentation, I think this is an example of where you need to select all the disconnected pieces of the object and any shadows it casts. Otherwise, Remove will generate a replacement that matches the remaining pieces and shadows.  This tip appears in the FAQ at the top of this thread and in this more extensive article:

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

In this case, you have to select all the railings and the subtle shadows they cast on the deck:

Also, I found good replacements by selecting all the water appearing between the railings.  Since I'm working with your screenshot, I can't tell how well this will work on the full photo. Also, be sure to undo any Crops, Lens Corrections, or Transform before applying Remove.

If you're still having trouble, please attach a full-resolution JPEG exported from the unmodified original photo.

[John R Ellis]

@Amy23951275i2q6, also, select all the pieces of the railing and the parts of the deck with shadows with a single brush stroke. Then use Refine > Subtract and Add to deselect the couple. There's a bug in Remove where variations and refreshes only apply to the first brush stroke.

[gotr903]

AI Remove isnt working for me     Im able to select and it gets shaded out    when I hit apply it does not disappear just adds a white line around it?

[John R Ellis]

@gotr903: "Im able to select and it gets shaded out    when I hit apply it does not disappear just adds a white line around it?"

Set the Opacity slider to 100. Does that fix it?

[louloubell]

Well that was easy.  After giving up on Generative Remove (Lightroom Classic) when it insisted on replacing the person I was trying to remove with a  random person...different person every time I tried.  I read the recommendations posted here, found the original uncropped photo and...it worked like a charm. I have no suggestion about what to do but somehow there should be a warning/advice to those who don't know not to crop before trying to remove or they will be as frustrated as many of those posting here. 

The removal was rather tricky since it was a photo of two people standing rignt next to each other but I'm satisfied with the results.  and don't want to post since I do not have permission from either of those involved

[John R Ellis]

@louloubell: "somehow there should be a warning/advice to those who don't know not to crop before trying to remove or they will be as frustrated as many of those posting here."

Agreed. There are even more confusing situations that will silently crop pixels and confuse Remove, such as applying Lens Corrections or using one of many cameras for which LR automatically crops a 10 - 16 pixel border from the photo (that you can't stop).

[Ben38474280lm19]

I'm trying to use this tool to remove electrical poles with a cloudy backdrop, and I find that the filled area is consistently slightly off in terms of color/tone as compared to the background. This is true across all the variations. (I used the standard content removal tool for the power lines connecting to the pole, and it worked just fine.)