P: The generative fill in Photoshop 26.0.0 is definitely worse than in previous versions.

[RedFishBlack]

The quality has dropped to an unusable level. Textures that were rendered beautifully in previous versions now sometimes appear smudged or as if painted in with a brush. There are far more nonsensical fills—like birds randomly appearing in hair or clothes, and extra hands in bizarre places when the image already has two! It’s like AI gone wrong. What happened to quality control? How does the AI actually get worse? This is beyond frustrating.

To make things worse, the newest update deleted my older versions, even though the "delete older versions" checkbox was unchecked. It's incredibly frustrating to lose those versions without consent.

[careaux]

Leaving the field blank does absolutely not work in the newest version, putting in a precise prompt did also not work at all. I now downgraded to the previous version and things are back to perfectly normal. I got flowers or weird objects on skin and generally absolutely random and low quality (texture-wise and content-wise) results at almost each try. These objects appeared when I left the field blank, hit enter and was actually trying to even out a wrinkle on skin.

   

[CMass]

Hey everyone,

Thank you for continuing to share your feedback and examples here! When you encounter any quality issues in the app, please remember to use the in-app feedback tool as well. 🙂 

Here’s how:

1. Go to the Properties Panel.
2. Hover over the generation in question.
3. Click on the “...” icon.
4. Choose Good, Poor, or Report.
5. Complete the “Rate the Result” questions. Note: You can also attach an image example.

^CM

[RedFishBlack]

Hi CM,

Thank you for sharing the tip!

As someone who works daily with Photoshop and generative fill, I’m focused on producing top-quality results within tight timelines. This means I don’t always have the flexibility to rate, comment, or answer feedback questions—my priority is often generating new prompts or moving on to the next task. Professional retouching demands a careful balance of speed and quality, so I’m constantly focused on maintaining that standard.

Thanks for understanding!

[careaux]

I sent probably 50-100 in-app feedbacks while experiencing this. A random lady sitting on my model's glasses, bugs crawling on skin, flowers growing out of pores. I might have gotten a bit hysterical while doing so. Anyways you should have a great line of feedback from my retouching session a couple of days ago. That's before I found this forum.

[CMass]

@RedFishBlack I totally understand, especially with the holiday season in full swing—you must be busy! 😊
@careaux That might have just sparked a new phobia for me… I’ll get back to you on that! 😆 But seriously, thank you for sharing the feedback; that’s exactly how we improve.

^CM

[rosa_018]

hi @CMass,

yes, it is happening with every generation. Here's a screenshot.

[sschoenthaler]

Hi! 
I ended up re-downloading a previous version of PS instead of the 26.0 version. 
Generative Fill AI works wonderfully now doing that! 

[MeredithStotzner]

@robertw44482386 
You are correct.
PS 26.0.0 + "Remove" in prompt gives the best results with the least amount unexpected inserted objects.
PS 25.x + no prompt gives very good results without frequent unexpected inserted objects
PS 26.0.0 + no prompt is producing the most unexpected inserted objects among these 3 options.

As Stephen noted, we are investigating ways to make sure you always get the best results. 
Thank you for your feedback!
Meredith

[careaux]

Hi, I appreciate you are taking on this issue but your statement is not true. 26.0.0 produces really, really bad and random results no matter what I do (no prompt, simple prompt like "remove", very precise prompt). I downgraded back to 25.12.0 and no matter what I do (no prompt, simple prompt like "remove", very precise prompt), the results are very good, even in tricky cases. Never, even in the very first days of generative fill in Photoshop Beta, I got results this bad. It is completely unusable at the moment.

[RedFishBlack]

I completely agree with Careaux. The prompts are completly unusable; they often produce nonsensical content, and the overall image quality is smudged and poor. It’s perplexing that this issue wasn’t noticed earlier, and it raises the question of why it’s so challenging to connect PS 26.0.0 to the high-quality AI model that worked so well in PS 25.12.0. None of this makes sense to me.

[lorim57871836]

This is exactly what's happening to me. Grass, or any patterned nature. Total Garbage!!!!!!!!!!  And in the busy season, it's completely unacceptable. This needs to be fixed or at the very least revert back to previous version. 

[?ukasz_Derangowski9772]

Yes. New generative fill in new version is awful. Also new version is unstable. Sometimes turns off after use remove tool. I have to back to older version of  PS. 

[CMass]

@rosa_018 Can you also share your system info? You can find this by going to Help > System Info copying and pasting into a text file and attaching it here. Can you save that PSD and share that file with me via PM as well? ^CM

[bellevue scott]

I have a print and reproduction facility and we use PS to edit images and prepare them for print. We have noticed that generative fill on high resolution images is pretty horrible. Regular content aware fill is much better than any generative fill. The generative fill function is in no way fit for print. Preparing files for print on canvas with gallery edges is particularly bad and not usable in production. 

[lorim57871836]

When is this getting fix? This is a SERIOUS problem and should have already been adressed with a patch ASAP. We are in the middle of busy season, pay for this product and expect it to work properly. Instead, we received an update that makes the function literally unusable. 

[careaux]

Every user has this problem obviously, no matter the system. Just try it yourself. Circle some pimples on skin and press enter. You will get flowers, bugs and letters. The older version works perfectly fine, the newer version is broken.

[MeredithStotzner]

Texture Fix for Generative Fill and Generative Expand in Photoshop Desktop 26.0

Hello,
We have a fix for the issue with texture generation in Generative Fill and Generative Expand in Photoshop desktop 26.0. This is a server-side fix; meaning you don't need to download any updates Photoshop 26.0 to see the better results and can use it right now. 
Please retry your examples where the Generative Fill texture was unexpected @RedFishBlack  @lorim57871836  @bellevue scott  @defaultyfouj0olonn4  @Christian1979   @robertw44482386   @Stefanos33766644gwog  @AntLamb 

We are still working on the issue of unwanted objects in Generative Fill, but plan to have an update for you soon.

Thank you for your feedback to help make Photoshop better!
🙂

[robertw44482386]

Thank you @MeredithStotzner for addressing this. I have redownloaded 26.0.0 and found that indeed textures are better so far. For example I was extending the tiny ribbed pattern of a t shirt into an area that was slightly out of focus and the result was improved over the previous version when using a null prompt. But it took a few tries to get one without a stray button or zipper or something being added (on a garment that had no buttons or zippers). I may burn through my credits even quicker this motnh....

[bellevue scott]

I tried using generative fill again this morning. I left it blank, hoping for better resolution, but the area I selected just got more blurry. So I said "increase resolution", and it gave me a dog. 

Then I realized I was still using PS 2024. So I closed it and opened PS 2025 (ver 26.0) and did the same thing again (generative fill, "increase resolution", and this time it gave me a warped elephant. 

I've tried a number of prompts, but all are as off the mark as this. Once I selected foreground and left it blank, and it gave me a lawn. Still not what I'm after. 

 

[careaux]

I feel you, @bellevue scott. ❤️

[Stephen Nielson]

@bellevue scott FYI, the fix that we deployed only addresses the degraded quality in generated textures. We are aware of the separate issue of random object insertion, and we are working on an additional fix.

In the meantime, here are two suggestions to reduce the occurence of random objects:

1. Use the prompt "remove"
2. Make sure your selection fully includes any shadows or anything that could be considered as the edge of an object

[bellevue scott]

Thanks. Previously "remove" was adding new objects but now does appear to be working correctly. 

[HenryFinch]

all these random subbjects fillign in are the worst. alreayd reported using the app as well.

[robertw44482386]

I don't know if something has changed recently again or not but using "remove" in 2025 seems to be producing halluinagenic results again. Was good up until this morning. @MeredithStotzner 

[Kra_Ash]

I have this problem as well was trying to remove something and usually it will do it with no problems it was a tree and it says against guidelines. So i tried remove tree and that didnt work either its always the really silly issues that have this problem and Im behind on editing now would really love to have a solution to this