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 (Dec 2024):  With the new release, it is no longer necessary to perform Generative Remove Operations prior to Cropping. 

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.

[Arnold-Norway]

Sorry, @John R Ellis. Francly I can't remember exactly how I did the first atempt, when it failed. But in the final result I had Object Aware checked for the microphone and upper part of the tripod. 
After your reply, I did a new remove, with Object Aware checked, and made sure the whole microphone setup was masked. The result was very good.
It is important to read the linked articles, and follow the beest practise guidelines. 

[Maya361279701ktg]

works great I love it

[brianl7355968]

Today seems like a good day for a 1st post.

I have had great sucess with the tool, the results at times have bordered on pure magic. But I am stuck on one element on the attached image where I can not remove the placard that is leaning on the front bumper of the car.

I had no issues removing the other objects on the ground in front of the car, along with the other objects and the people in the background, but that one placard leaning on the bumber has me stumped.

I have tried the guidance I have read about here and at Lightroom Queen, but Generative AI seems determined to replace the object, not remove it.

I am wondering if the shadows under the front bumber and to the right of the object are tripping up Generative AI? The image SOC is under exposed, but that is easily correctable in LR. 

Thanks in advance for any guidance that can help me with this image.

I am using LR Classic, 13.5.1, Camera Raw 16.5, on a Mac Studio running Sonoma 14.6.1. 

[ArcherA4]

Still finding my way with this but certainly looks like the shadow - I did a quick hack just 

object selecting the sign and got a grey box

There's quite a clear square shadow on the floor and manually adding that, and anything that could be a shadow of the sign took the sign straight out...

 

[ArcherA4]

Hmm - so - delvelopment request?

The AI knows that the shadow is of something so creates something for it to be a shadow of - could the AI not work forward from the selection if it already recognises the shadow as it obviously does?

"You've selected a thing to remove - there is a shadow of the thing but you haven't selected the shadow so that will be selected and removed too unless you specify that you want a replacement object"

[John R Ellis]

@ArcherA4: "There's quite a clear square shadow on the floor and manually adding that, and anything that could be a shadow of the sign took the sign straight out..."

That's a good example of how shadows interact with Remove!  Reflections, even broken-up reflections on water, also have to be selected to avoid "replace-instead-of-remove".

[brianl7355968]

OK, success!

Thank you kindly for the suggestions on how to solve this problem.

TBH, it did take me about 10 iterations to get it to work. I was not sure if the shadow area was supposed to bleed-over to the sign area. I did select the shadow first, them the sign, and on the pass that did work, it did appears that there was a bit of bleed-over. There was a lot of T&E to get the shadow selected such that it was eliminated along with the sign.

The finished product (for now!) is attached. It amazes me how effective this tool is. While it is now somewhat obscured by my use of Lens Blur, there is a folding chair to the right of the cement column on the left side of the image. Generative AI eliminates it and fills in a reasonable facsimile of what the fence behind it looks like. 

PFM. 🙂

Thanks again!

[brianl7355968]

Sorry to drop my post under yours....still getting the jist of things here.

[willemientje]

It sometimes removes just a part of the selected area, and it would be nice if it recognised edges so the selection woulde be more precise. 

[John R Ellis]

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

@willemientje: "It sometimes removes just a part of the selected area"

Your screenshot shows there are two selections of the bird in the background:

You are tripping over a design misfeature of LR Classic that isn't present in LR Desktop or Camera Raw. To remove an object, you need to select all of its disconnected pieces. But in LR Classic, when you click Add to select the second disconnected piece, LR inexplicably treats that as a second selection, not as part of the first selection. (The two selections are displayed as separate pins, as in your screenshot.) Then when you click Apply, Remove processes the first selection, generating a replacement that considers the second piece still present, then it processes the second selection.

The workaround is to select all of disconnected pieces with connected brush strokes and then use Subtract to remove parts you don't want selected. See this article for a more detailed explanation with examples:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/removing-disconnected-objects-select-everything-the...

When I use this workaround with your screenshot, Remove quickly removes all traces of the background bird.

[tshepo_2158]

why is the Generative AI now disabled? it worked wonders

[John R Ellis]

@tshepo_2158: "why is the Generative AI now disabled?"

It's not disabled for other users. Please post a full-resolution screenshot (not phone pic) of the entire LR window showing how it's disabled for you.

[MMacDonald]

Been using LR since it first came out; not a big Photoshop user.  This tool is a huge improvement.  Not perfect, but then what is?  Thanks to the creators.

[Marina39068792byt2]

no funciona.
funcionaba antes pero ahora no hace nada, ni borra ni agrega, nada

[cherise5E1E]

The remove tool is in the way when trying to see the actual changes.

[ArcherA4]

Press H (Lightroom Classic) to cycle tool overlays to make the icon/Remove outline disappear and reappear (or select from the Tool Overlays drop down on the Remove panel)

[joc48777644]

The Generative AI feature of the remove tool is really coming along. I've had a lot of success with it so far! Just wondering if a fix can be made:

The tool brings up the "variations" option directly after clicking apply. Once a variation is chosen, sometimes (most of the time) it's necessary to view the variation in the image without the remove icon and outline blocking/distracting from the full picture. This isn't possible unless you click off or go to another tab - but once you do this, you loose the "variations" option. If you end up not liking the variation once you see it in the image as a whole, you have to start the process over. Is there a way to retain the Variations once you leave the Remove tab so that you can click through them again?

This is especially important for smaller areas that aren't easy to see if the remove icon is in the middle of the selected space. 

[joc48777644]

Please disregard, I figured it out!

[ArcherA4]

In this particular example you can hide the icon/outline by pressing H to cycle through the tool overlays (or select that on the Remove panel

It would be nice to retain the variations when coming back from a different panel but as a workaround you can skip through the three variations before leaving Remove and they then become and remain available in the History panel as "Select Variation"

[ArcherA4]

Agh - sorry, crossed - you figured it out while I was fact checking

[Jonathan30637598mg9d]

Create a function that allows the heal tool to intersect with the mask function: I want to select a subject and be able to remove them using the mask that has been created for them. Similar to what can be done in photoshop.

[leland_chew]

I've been using my Android phone Photo Editor and object remove feature for over a year.  Sadly, it is far superior than Adobe Generative AI remove Early Access functionality.  The Android Photo Editor is truly object aware and a single tap selects an object and the erase truly removes the object with perfect blending of surrounding background. 

The only thing that I like with the Adobe functionality is the ability to refine a mask/selection by adding/subtracting.  This must to be applied to clone and heal tools too!

I'm sorry to say that Adobe AI powered Generative AI should focus on REMOVAL versus 99% of the time trying to replace with unrelated stuff.  Ony 1% of the time it is able to remove a selection and just blend from the surrounding area. 

I waste more time using the Adobe Generative AI Remove feature from multiple refresh after refresh.  It's still faster to clone & heal (which needs the refine mask add/subtract capability as mentioned).

[Arnold-Norway]

@leland_chew I tried Android  Generative Remove AI on my phone now.  My experience is the opposite of your description. I tried to remove diferent subjects in 15 photos. Nearly all of them removed the masked subject perfectly. In only two of them I had to try once more, to get better results.

[audrey_5200]

It mostly just replaces with another version of the object I'm trying to remove. 

I have had good luck with removing bandaids but thats all its been helpful with.

[stone_3461]

I agree LR is not nearly as good as ps yet