Are we thinking WRONG about AI Editing?

My last two videos had ChatGPT editing my photographs, first in Lightroom, where it went through a folder of my own edited pictures, worked out my style and then edited a raw file the way I would, and then in Photoshop, where it used Photoshop's own tools to remove a colour cast, add a long exposure effect to a sky and do a cutout, hair included.

In both of them it didn't generate a new picture. It moved the same sliders and used the same tools that you and I would, and every one of those adjustments was still there to change afterwards.

The comments on those videos have been brilliant and they've really made me think, but one kept coming up in different words, and the gist of it was this: so now every picture is going to look like yours.

When you watch what ChatGPT is doing in those videos, it's an understandable thing to think. I just don't think it's right, so rather than argue about it, I decided to test it, and the video above is the result.

Putting it to the test

I gave ChatGPT a folder of my portraits, with my edits on them, and asked it to work out how I edit. Then I gave it the raw file of a portrait I'd already edited myself and asked it to edit that in my style.

I'm not going to go through what I did to mine; the two results are side by side in the video, so have a look and see if you can tell which is which before I give it away.

Here's the thing, though. Whichever one you prefer, they both look like one of my portraits, and that's not because of the edit, it's because I took the picture. Everything that makes it look like one of mine happened before the shutter was pressed, and ChatGPT had none of that to work with; it just had my raw file.

The edit is the icing on the cake

The edit is the part of the process we can see on screen, so it's easy to think that's what makes a picture yours, but it's only one part of a much bigger process. I really enjoy editing, and it gives a picture its final look, but for me it's the icing on the cake.

The big part is what goes on between my ears: how I think about a picture before I take it and how I compose it. With a portrait, it's how the person looks in front of the camera and whether they're relaxed or not. With a seascape, it's what goes in the frame and what doesn't.

None of that is in the edit, so even if somebody had the exact colouring, contrast and tonality I use, their pictures still wouldn't look like mine. They'd look like theirs, with my colouring on them.

We can all buy the same kit, spend the same money on the same camera and lens, stand in exactly the same spot and point it at the same thing, and the pictures still won't look the same. There'll be something in each one that's uniquely yours, because of what you like and what you don't, how you were brought up and everything you've looked at over the years. All of that goes into a photograph, and none of it comes out of an edit.

An opinion, or a misunderstanding?

People have their own opinions about AI, and that's a good thing; having an opinion is part of being human, not something artificial. Sometimes an opinion just isn't right, though, and I know that sounds a strange thing to say. The idea that everybody's pictures are going to end up looking the same isn't really an opinion at all. It's a misunderstanding of what photography is.

Using the software, not replacing the picture

That's also why the way ChatGPT did those edits interests me so much. There's a difference between asking an AI to generate a new version of your picture and having it use the same software you and I would. When a picture's generated, you hand it over and get a new one back. When the AI works the sliders and the masks itself, you get your own raw file back at full quality, with every adjustment still there to change.

It's a bit like the difference between someone redrawing your picture and someone sitting next to you showing you what they did with it. Both have their place, but they're very different things.

Two very different photographers

Where it gets interesting is who all of this is for, because there are definitely two different audiences. Take Adobe as an example. On one side they've got working photographers, people with clients and deadlines, editing a shoot with hundreds of pictures that all need the same look. On the other they've got enthusiasts, people who take pictures because they just love doing it.

For the working photographer, imagine being able to hand an AI an actual part of your process. I don't mean something that makes a new picture; I mean something that applies the same look to a whole set of images inside the software, moving the sliders and making the masks without touching the originals, so you can go in and change whatever you want afterwards. That could be a massive time saver.

The hobbyist is a different story, because for them editing isn't a job to get through. They go out and take their pictures because they enjoy it, then come home and edit them with no rush at all, sitting in a room with a bit of music on and maybe a nice glass of something. For them the editing is part of the thing they love, and a one-click fix isn't for them.

However, some of what AI brings is. The Remove Tool in Photoshop has been a massive benefit; jobs that used to take an age now take moments. Anything that helps with selections, hair and fine cutouts especially, is going to be a huge help as well. None of that takes the enjoyment away. It takes away the tedious bits and leaves more time for the parts you actually enjoy.

How I use it

I use AI every single day, for the admin, the research and the writing that goes with running everything on my own. I'm a one-man band, so that's a lot of work it takes off my desk, and I'm not worried in the slightest that other people's pictures are going to look like mine.

What it gives me is time, and that matters to me more than anything, because I absolutely love doing what I do. I got into this creative world because I love being creative, and I love the freedom of it and the escapism it gives me. I don't want anything to replace that. If anything I want more of it, which is exactly how I'm using AI; it takes care of the jobs I'd rather not be doing and gives me back more time with a camera in my hand.

The mood of the moment

When I gave ChatGPT my Lightroom and Photoshop to use, it didn't edit my pictures exactly the way I would. It can pick up the things I tend to do, but when I'm editing I'm very much in the mood of the moment, chopping and changing as I go, and that freedom of just going with it is a big part of why I enjoy editing at all. AI doesn't know the mood or the feeling I want to give a particular picture, and creating that is what I've always loved.

The Photoshop side was different, because those were tasks. The colour cast, the sky and the hair cutout were jobs where I knew what the finished result needed to be, and what I found really interesting was the thought of handing those kinds of tasks to an AI to do by hand, using the software the same way I would, so I've got more time for the creative side. It was an experiment, but it's certainly one that's got me thinking.

ChatGPT Can Now ACTUALLY Use Photoshop, and It's Impressive

ChatGPT can now take control of your computer, moving the mouse, clicking and typing its way through a job the way you would, and the question I've been asked the most about it is whether it can use Photoshop. I've been testing it, and yes, it can.

What makes it interesting is that it isn't generating a new picture. It's working inside Photoshop with the same tools you and I use, which means everything it does is left as layers and masks you can go back into and adjust yourself, at full quality.

To see how far it could go, I gave it three jobs on three different pictures: fixing a colour cast, creating a long exposure sky, and cutting out hair, which is the thing I get asked about more than anything else in Photoshop.

How it works

I'm using ChatGPT 6 Astra on the high setting, in the Work section of the app. I type out what I want in plain language, send it, and it replies with what it intends to do. The first time it needs to use the computer it asks for permission, I click allow, and from then on it's hands off; I just sit back and watch it work.

With each job I asked it to keep everything non-destructive and editable, and not to save the file, just leave it as layers. You can see everything it does as it does it, and you can stop it at any point.

Fixing a colour cast

The first picture was a portrait of a biker with a definite colour cast, a slightly green and magenta look to it. I asked ChatGPT to look at the image, decide for itself which tools to use, and give me a neutral result.

It added a Curves adjustment layer, worked on the individual red, green and blue channels, and set the layer's blend mode to Color so that it only changed the colour and left the brightness and contrast alone, which is a genuinely sensible way to do it. The original background layer was untouched.

Turning the layer off and on, the cast was gone. It's not too bad at all, and I was quite impressed with that.

A long exposure sky

For the second one I wanted to step it up and see whether it could create an effect rather than make a correction. The picture was of my car on a very wet, stormy day, and I asked for the look of a ten second long exposure, with fast moving clouds coming over the top of us.

What really caught my attention was that it used the same technique I use for this myself. It selected the sky, put it onto its own layer, then converted that layer to a Smart Object before applying a Radial Blur, so the filter stays editable afterwards, which I thought was really clever.

Better still, it moved the centre of the blur. By default a Radial Blur spreads out from the middle of the picture, but ChatGPT pulled that point right down to the bottom, so the blur looks as if it's coming from the horizon and the clouds are streaming towards you. That's exactly the thinking you'd want.

I did have to stop it at the very end, because it was trying to save the file, but the effect itself was done.

Cutting out hair

The last job was the hardest, and the one I was most intrigued by. It's a picture of my friend Simon from a Viking shoot, on a grey background, but with lots of fine, loose flyaway hairs and fur cuffs on what he's wearing. I asked for the best cutout it could manage, body, hair and everything as one, output as a layer mask so it stays editable.

Watching this one was fascinating. It went into Select and Mask and used the Refine Edge Brush around the hair, and it kept switching the view mode to check its own work. At one point it reported that the fine strands were coming through, but that the black preview was showing grey left between the looser locks, so it went back to work on those and the fur before checking the final mask. Right at the end it even renamed the layer, which is maybe something all of us could learn from.

The result is a pretty good job. It picked up a lot of the fine hairs, it's a little smudgy in places, and there's some transparency through the fur. To judge it properly I put a solid colour fill layer behind Simon, a sky blue rather than anything too different from the grey he was photographed against.

The transparency in the fur is easily fixed. Duplicate the layer with its mask (Command or Ctrl + J) and the density builds up, then brush out any areas where the background starts to show through.

Doing the heavy lifting

It isn't perfect, and I don't expect this to be the end point, but as a way of doing the heavy lifting so you can go in and do the fine tuning yourself, it's pretty impressive. The colour correction was very good, the long exposure was really well done, and the hair cutout, the hardest of the three by some distance, was far better than I expected.

This is also the worst and the slowest it's ever going to be, given how quickly all of this is moving. I'll be doing a lot more testing, and one of the things I want to try is whether it can write down the steps it takes and grab screenshots as it goes, so you could almost create your own tutorials from it.

Is Apple Photos REALLY Better Than Adobe Photoshop?

I honestly didn’t expect to be asking that question.

Photoshop has long been my first choice for removing unwanted people and objects from photographs. However, after testing the updated Clean Up tool in Apple Photos, I got results that weren’t simply comparable to Photoshop—they were noticeably better.

To find out whether this was a one-off, I put Apple Photos and Photoshop through three increasingly difficult tests.

Apple Photos Clean Up vs Photoshop Remove Tool

For the Photoshop edits, I used the Remove Tool with its mode set to Auto. This allows Photoshop to decide whether to use generative AI, Content-Aware technology or another method to fill the selected area.

For Apple Photos, I used the Clean Up tool on my iPhone, selecting the High Quality option. The same technology is also available in the desktop version of Apple Photos.

In both applications, I made quick, rough selections around the people I wanted to remove. I wasn’t attempting to produce perfect selections or spend time manually tidying the results. The aim was to see what each application could produce on its own.

Test One: Removing People From a Railway Station

The first photograph was taken at Cardiff Central railway station during a World War II-themed portrait shoot.

Original

I wanted to remove a group of people on the left-hand side of the frame. This meant the software needed to rebuild part of the station interior behind them.

Photoshop took almost a minute to process the removal. From a distance, the result looked acceptable. It had reconstructed much of the background and hadn’t caused too much damage to the surrounding areas. However, closer inspection revealed several areas that would need tidying.

Apple Photos completed the same task in around five seconds.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

The result was much cleaner. It reconstructed the background convincingly, removed distracting marks and shadows from the floor and created a space that genuinely looked as though you could walk through it.

It was an impressive start for Apple Photos—but the next test was considerably harder.

Test Two: Rebuilding a Complex Event Backdrop

The second photograph showed me standing with Carly from BenQ at the Wex Summer Roadshow.

Original

Removing both of us meant rebuilding a large section of the image, including a branded backdrop, a table, several logos and objects in the background.

Photoshop initially produced a result that looked quite impressive. It managed to recreate several BenQ logos and parts of the display. However, the longer I looked at the image, the more problems appeared.

Some of the logos were distorted, the table didn’t make complete sense and Photoshop had created several strange objects in the background. It had filled the empty space, but the result would require a fair amount of additional work.

Apple Photos took approximately 15 seconds to complete the same removal.

The difference was remarkable.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

The backdrop was clean, the logos were correctly positioned and the table had been rebuilt without an obvious join. It also reconstructed the wall and background pictures convincingly without duplicating random objects.

In this example, Apple Photos was the clear winner.

Test Three: An Almost Impossible Removal

The final photograph was the toughest test.

It showed me with Harry, a potter I photographed for my I Am Lyme project. Between us, we covered a large part of the frame, leaving the software with very little visible background to use as a reference.

Original

Photoshop filled the space, but the result looked confused. It repeated objects, created strange shapes and produced an area that became less convincing the longer you examined it.

Apple Photos produced something completely different.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

It reconstructed the trolley behind us, including one of its legs and a wheel. It also created a believable continuation of the workshop wall, complete with pots, tools and other details that matched the surrounding environment.

Was every generated detail an accurate reconstruction of what was really there? Of course not. Neither application can see through people to reveal the original background.

What mattered was whether the generated result looked believable—and the Apple Photos version did.

Looking at the Results Side by Side

After completing all three tests, I transferred the Apple Photos versions to my computer and compared them directly with the Photoshop edits.

The first Photoshop result was acceptable, but the Apple version was cleaner.

The second comparison wasn’t particularly close. Apple Photos handled the branded backdrop, table and background objects far more convincingly.

The third result was the most surprising of all. Photoshop appeared to fill the space with repeated textures and objects, whereas Apple Photos created a much more coherent scene.

Across these three photographs, Apple Photos consistently produced the better result.

Does This Mean Apple Photos Is Better Than Photoshop?

Not as an overall photo editor.

Photoshop remains an incredibly powerful application with an enormous range of professional editing, retouching, compositing and creative tools. Apple Photos isn’t going to replace it in my workflow.

However, when it comes to these specific removal tasks, Apple Photos’ Clean Up tool was better than Photoshop’s Remove Tool—and in some cases, it was considerably better.

It was also incredibly easy to use. I simply traced around the subjects with my finger, tapped Clean Up and waited a few seconds.

Questions About Resolution and Cost

There are still a couple of areas I want to investigate further.

The first is resolution. An image can look convincing on a phone or computer screen, but printing it is a much more demanding test. I’d like to see how much genuine detail the Clean Up tool generates and how well those reconstructed areas hold up in a physical print.

The other consideration is cost. Apple has indicated that some server-based AI features may have usage limits, with expanded access potentially becoming available for a fee. How that develops—and what it might eventually cost—remains to be seen.

Final Thoughts

Three photographs can’t tell us how these tools will perform in every possible situation. Different images, backgrounds and lighting conditions will inevitably produce different results.

But in these tests, particularly the two most challenging removals, Apple Photos was clearly ahead.

The results were clean, convincing and produced in seconds with nothing more than a rough selection made using my finger.

I never expected to say this, but Adobe genuinely needs to step things up.

Watch the video to see the full editing process and all three comparisons, then let me know what you think. Were you as impressed by the Apple Photos results as I was?

How to Fix Photoshop Scratch Disk Full (once and for all)

This warning has popped up a few times recently when I’ve been using Photoshop, and if you’ve seen it too, you might be wondering what a scratch disk actually is… and what you’re supposed to clear.

So, to accompany the video, I thought I’d put the steps here so you’ve got something to refer back to. There’s also a way to change your scratch disk if Photoshop won’t even open.

First, check which drive Photoshop is using

Before doing anything else, save your work if Photoshop will let you.

Then head to:

• Mac: Photoshop > Settings > Scratch Disks

• Windows: Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks

Look at which drive is selected and how much space is available. That’s the drive we need to check.

You might have another drive connected with loads of room, but unless Photoshop is configured to use it, that space isn’t helping.

What exactly is a scratch disk?

Think of it as extra working room.

Imagine working on a print at a table. The print itself might be quite small, but you still need space around it for everything you’re using.

Photoshop needs that working room too. It uses space on a drive to store temporary information whilst you edit, so the size of your saved photograph doesn’t tell you how much space Photoshop might need to work on it.

There’s also a difference between a warning that space is getting low and an error that stops you opening Photoshop, editing or saving. A warning doesn’t necessarily mean the drive is completely full, but dismissing it doesn’t give Photoshop any more room.

Free up some space

Adobe recommends having at least 100 GB free on your primary scratch drive when troubleshooting this error. That’s guidance rather than a guarantee that every job will fit. Larger projects may need more.

Start with files you recognise: old video exports, downloads or projects you’ve already finished.

If you move them to another drive, check that the copies are there and open properly before removing the originals. And remember, putting files in the Trash or Recycle Bin doesn’t immediately free up the space. Review what’s in there before emptying it.

Once you’ve made room, save your work if you can, quit Photoshop completely and reopen it. Then try whatever you were doing when the warning appeared.

Give Photoshop another drive to use

If storage on your computer is always tight, another option is to give Photoshop a suitable drive with plenty of available space.

I use an SSD as a dedicated scratch disk.

Go back into Scratch Disks, select the drive and, if you’ve selected more than one, use the arrows to set their order. Adobe recommends putting the fastest drive first.

Click OK, then restart Photoshop.

Oh, and changing this setting doesn’t move your photographs. You’re choosing where Photoshop can put its temporary working data. If you’re using an external SSD, keep it connected whilst Photoshop is using it.

What if Photoshop won’t open?

You can’t get into Settings if Photoshop refuses to launch, but there’s a shortcut for that.

Hold these keys whilst launching Photoshop:

• Mac: Command + Option

• Windows: Ctrl + Alt

This lets you choose a scratch disk during startup. Select a suitable drive with space available, then continue opening Photoshop.

Don’t add the Shift key. That’s the shortcut for resetting preferences, which we’ll come to shortly.

Of course, if your only drive is full, the shortcut won’t create any extra space. You’ll need to make room outside Photoshop first.

Still getting the warning?

First, double-check that the free space you’re looking at belongs to the drive selected in Photoshop.

Then try quitting Photoshop completely and reopening it. Its temporary working data can build up during a session, and closing your photographs doesn’t necessarily release everything.

A restart can help, but it won’t solve a drive that’s consistently running out of room.

It’s also worth checking History States, under Settings / Preferences > Performance > History & Cache.

This controls how many previous editing steps Photoshop keeps available for you to return to. Keeping more can require more scratch space.

Adobe’s documented default is 50. If you’ve increased yours to several hundred, consider whether you really need that many. Reducing the number may help, but you’ll have fewer steps you can go back to.

Be careful with Purge

You might have seen advice to choose Edit > Purge > All.

This can release memory and scratch space, but understand what it does before clicking it: purging clears temporary editing information, including your history.

It doesn’t return your photograph to its original appearance, but you lose the ability to go back through the history you’ve cleared. You can’t undo the purge.

Save your work first if possible, and treat this as an optional troubleshooting step.

Resetting preferences

If you’ve checked the correct drive, made room and restarted, but the error keeps returning, resetting Photoshop’s preferences is another troubleshooting option.

This can help if damaged preference files are contributing to the problem. It doesn’t create storage, and it can remove your custom settings, so back those up first.

With Photoshop open, go to Settings / Preferences > General > Reset Preferences on Quit. Confirm, quit and reopen Photoshop, then check your scratch disk selection again.

If Photoshop won’t open, hold these keys whilst launching:

• Mac: Command + Option + Shift

• Windows: Ctrl + Alt + Shift

That’s the shortcut with the extra Shift key. You’ll be asked whether you want to delete the Photoshop settings file.

Start with the Scratch Disks panel

The main thing is to check which drive Photoshop is actually using and how much room it has. Then free up space or give it another suitable drive to work with.

Make one change at a time and repeat whatever caused the warning. That way, you’ll know what helped.

The video above takes you through where to find everything.

Right, I hope that’s useful.

Glyn

Iron Clothes in Photoshop in 30 Seconds

Almost every conversation I see about AI and photography is about generating things that were never in the frame in the first place, and that's never been the part that interests me. What I actually care about is getting time back. The small distractions that were out of my control on the day, the ones that used to cost me twenty minutes with the healing brush, can now be sorted cleanly in seconds with the texture still intact.

Wrinkled clothing and folded backdrops are the two that come up again and again. So here's how I deal with both.

The orange t shirt

First job on this one was a distracting logo on the shirt, and for that I go straight to the Remove Tool. The setting worth knowing about is Auto, which lets Photoshop work out for itself whether it needs standard content aware fill or whether it needs to reach for generative AI. On a simple cleanup like a small logo it'll usually just handle it locally, which means you're not burning generative processing on something that didn't need it.

With the logo gone, the creases were the bigger problem, and that's a three step job.

Make a loose selection around the whole shirt with the standard Lasso Tool. Nothing precious about it, loose is fine. Then open Generative Fill from the contextual taskbar and pick the Firefly Image 5 model, which in my experience is much better at editing what's already there and preserving fine detail than it is at inventing things you didn't ask for. Then type a clear prompt: "remove the creases from off the orange t shirt".

That's it.

What comes back has the harsh creases gone but the natural drape still there, along with the shadows and the weave of the fabric. It still looks like a t shirt someone was actually wearing, which is the whole point.

That slightly crispy edge, and the Quick Mask fix

The second example was a branded white t shirt, and that's a bit more involved because you want a proper selection rather than a loose lasso.

The Object Selection Tool is quick here, and using Select People and then Upper Clothes gets you there in a couple of clicks. The catch is that it can leave a hard, slightly crispy edge, and you tend to notice it most around the neckline where the shirt meets skin.

In Adobe Camera Raw and in Lightroom there are dedicated Feather and Edge sliders for AI masks, which sort this out instantly. Photoshop doesn't have those in the main workspace at the moment, so you need a workaround, and the one I use is Quick Mask.

Make your selection with the Object Selection Tool, then tap Q to drop into Quick Mask Mode. Go to Filter, then Blur, then Gaussian Blur, and put in something small; I'm usually somewhere between 1 and 1.2 pixels. Tap Q again to come out.

That tiny bit of blur softens the boundary between the mask and the skin so the transition reads as natural rather than cut out.

Being specific is the whole game

This is the bit I'd underline if I were underlining anything.

Generative Fill still needs a clear instruction even when you've made a precise selection. If you type "remove the creases" and nothing else, more often than not you'll get nothing back at all, because the model hasn't been given enough to go on.

Prompt it with "remove the creases from off the white t shirt" instead and it knows exactly what it's looking at and what you want doing. The folds go, the printed typography stays where it was, and the grain of the fabric survives.

It feels fussy the first couple of times. It stops feeling fussy the moment you see the difference.

The same thing works on backdrops

Studio backgrounds are the other one, and the workflow is identical.

Select your subject with Select and then Subject, then invert it with Select and then Inverse so it's the background you're working on rather than the person. Soften that boundary with the same Quick Mask and Gaussian Blur trick, which matters more here than anywhere else because of hair and shoulders.

Then in Generative Fill, be even more specific than you think you need to be. Something like: "remove the creases from off the grey background. do not change the look of the grey background. keep the texture etc."

Those extra instructions are doing real work. Without them you can end up with a background that's been quietly smoothed into a flat, artificial gradient, and you've lost the character of the thing entirely. With them, the fold lines from a portable backdrop like the Westcott Vintage Grey X-Drop Pro disappear and the texture stays exactly as it was.

None of this is compulsory

I'm not telling anyone they have to work this way. If you enjoy retouching every fold by hand, and plenty of people genuinely do, there's nothing wrong with that at all and the results will be lovely.

But if you'd rather spend less of your life sat in front of an editing screen and more of it on the actual photography, using these tools deliberately, on the boring problems rather than to invent things that were never there, is a big win.

Camera Raw 18.5: New Blemish Removal + What Adobe Got Wrong

Camera Raw 18.5 landed on the 4th August, and alongside the usual long list of small tweaks there are three additions worth knowing about. Two of them are quick admin jobs. The third is a brand new portrait tool that genuinely changes how retouching works inside Camera Raw.

One thing to get out of the way first. All three are Camera Raw only at the moment. They aren't in Lightroom Desktop or Lightroom Classic yet. Camera Raw is the processing engine sitting underneath the whole Lightroom family, so new features tend to turn up there first and then work their way across to everything else. If you've got Photoshop, you can start using all of this today through the Camera Raw Filter, on raw files, JPEGs, TIFFs, or an individual layer.

Turning the generative AI features off

If you enter competitions, or you deliver to clients who want to know nothing generative has been near their files, or you'd simply rather not have those tools sitting there in front of you, you can now switch them off completely.

Open Preferences, the settings icon, go to the Generative AI tab and uncheck Enable Generative AI Features. That's it.

What it turns off is the three tools that make brand new pixels out of thin air. What it leaves alone is Denoise, Super Resolution and the standard Remove tool, because none of those are generative.

One thing to watch. The setting is per machine, so if you work on a desktop and a laptop you'll need to turn it off on both.

Two small additions to the vectorscope

If you use the vectorscope for colour work, and you'll find it by right clicking the histogram and choosing Show Vectorscope, there are two new options in there.

You can now line Red up at 3 o'clock, which matches the layout video editors have been using for years. And you can toggle on LAB values so you're reading actual numbers rather than eyeballing it, which is handy when you're matching skin tones across a whole shoot rather than one frame.

Small stuff, but if you're already living in the vectorscope you'll appreciate both.

The new Blemish Removal

This is the headline addition, and it lives inside the Remove panel under a new section called Distraction Removal, then Blemishes.

Click Apply and it runs an automatic first pass across the face. That one click gets you a decent way there, but only a decent way. The bit that actually matters is understanding what the two sliders underneath are doing, because they're doing two very different jobs.

Amount, for the temporary stuff

The Amount slider deals with temporary marks. Spots, breakouts, the things that would have cleared up on their own in a fortnight anyway.

At 100 it removes every temporary mark it can find. As you bring it down, the smaller and subtler marks come back first while the more prominent ones stay hidden. Sitting somewhere in the middle is usually where you want to be, because it clears the angry breakout without stripping the skin of its normal texture and leaving you with that plastic look nobody wants.

Fade, and the default I'd change every time

The Fade slider handles permanent features. Moles, beauty spots, freckles. The things that are part of someone's face rather than something that turned up last Tuesday.

Adobe has set the default for Fade at 50.

I've got a real problem with that. At 50, Camera Raw is fading a client's natural moles and beauty spots halfway out before you've touched a single control. Nobody asked it to. You open the file, and a piece of software has quietly made a decision about somebody's face on your behalf.

So the habit I'd get into is this. Every time you open a portrait, drag Fade down to 0 before you do anything else. Look at the face as it actually is, then decide. If the client has asked you to soften a mole, fine, soften it. But make that an intentional choice you've made, not a default you didn't notice.

Refine, for the bits it gets wrong

Clicking Refine gives you a brush with two modes.

Restore brings back something the tool has taken out that you wanted to keep, a character mark or a scar it's decided to tidy away. Remove clears anything the automatic pass has missed.

Between those two you can get any face exactly where you want it in under a minute.

If you're working on a group shot you can pick individual faces, or select All People and do the lot in one go. I'd be careful with All People, though. The same Amount and Fade settings applied to a teenager and a grandparent rarely work for both, and you'll usually be better off going face by face.

Texture is only half the job

Here's the bit that gets missed, and it's the difference between a retouch that looks finished and one that doesn't quite.

There are two separate problems on a spot. There's texture, which is the raised physical bump on the skin, and there's tone, which is the red patch sitting underneath and around it.

The Blemishes tool is excellent on texture. It does nothing at all about tone.

Think of it like makeup. The Blemishes tool is the concealer, covering the bump. You still need a base to even out the colour underneath. Skip that step and you're left with red blotches on otherwise clean skin, and those often pull the eye harder than the original breakout did, because now there's nothing else there to explain them.

Fixing the tone with Point Color

The temptation is to build a skin selection and shift the colour globally, but that moves the whole face just to fix a few patches. A localised brush is much better behaved.

1. grab a standard masking brush with a soft, feathered edge and paint over only the red, blotchy areas

2. inside the brush mask settings, open Point Color

3. take the eyedropper and click on an area of clean, healthy skin nearby, which tells Camera Raw what colour that red patch is supposed to be

4. widen the Variance slider

That last one is where it happens. Expanding Variance pulls the surrounding red tones smoothly towards your clean sample, so the patchwork evens out without anything else on the face moving.

So, next time you open a portrait

Run Blemishes, pull Fade to 0 and decide for yourself what stays, then set Amount somewhere sensible rather than pinning it at 100.

Then brush the red areas and use Point Color to bring the tone back in line.

The whole thing takes a couple of minutes inside one dialogue box. No healing layers, no frequency separation, no round trip into Photoshop and back. For anyone who's put off retouching because it always felt like a job that needed a stack of layers and half an hour, this is a lovely way in.

Photoshop's NEW On-Device AI Remove Tool

Adobe shipped Photoshop 27.7 on the 19thMay 2026, and tucked inside it is one of the more genuinely useful quality-of-life features I've seen in years: the ability to run the Remove tool's generative AI model entirely on your own hardware.

For photographers and retouchers, that means object removal that's faster, works offline, and keeps sensitive client work on your own machine.

What the Remove Tool Actually Does

The Remove tool sits alongside the Healing and Clone tools as Photoshop's go-to way of erasing distractions. You paint over something you don't want, a stray tourist, a power cable, a logo, a blemish, and Photoshop fills the area with believable pixels sampled and synthesised from the surroundings.

In the current version there are effectively three flavours of Remove.

Standard Remove (Generative AI off)

Uses content-aware style algorithms, processed locally. It works well on simple, repeating backgrounds, but it can struggle with complex textures and edges.

Cloud Generative Remove (Generative AI on, Cloud)

Sends your selection to Adobe's servers, where a Firefly-class model generates new pixels to fill the gap. It generally performs better on complex scenes with fine detail, like foliage, hair and signage.

On-device Generative Remove (Generative AI on, Device)

New in Photoshop 27.7. A generative model is downloaded to your computer so the Remove tool can do that heavy lifting locally instead of relying on the cloud.

Functionally, on-device mode aims to give you cloud-quality results with the reliability of local processing.

Why Bother With On-Device Remove?

If Remove already runs in the cloud, why bother with on-device at all? Three reasons.

Speed and responsiveness

In on-device mode, the model runs directly on your GPU rather than making a round trip to Adobe's servers. On powerful machines that means noticeably snappier results, especially on large layered documents or when you're doing lots of small removals across a full shoot.

It works when you're offline

Cloud Remove simply doesn't function without an internet connection. If you're editing on a train, in a remote landscape, in a studio with poor Wi-Fi or at a client office behind a locked-down network, that's a problem. On-device Remove works exactly the same way whether you're online or offline.

Better privacy and data control

Some jobs involve embargoed campaigns, confidential documents or sensitive subjects. In those situations it's often preferable, or contractually required, to keep all processing on your own hardware. On-device Remove keeps the pixels on your machine, which can be an important reassurance for privacy-conscious clients.

The Catch: The Hardware Bar Is High

Running a generative model locally is demanding. Photoshop checks your system automatically, and if it doesn't qualify, the Device option in the Remove tool is simply greyed out.

On Windows, Adobe's current guidance calls for a modern multi-core CPU, a strong GPU, and decent RAM and SSD space:

On top of that, Adobe lists higher VRAM thresholds by GPU family. Current documentation and support posts indicate that many mid-range GPUs, some RTX 30-series cards with 12GB of VRAM for example, still don't unlock the Device option for Remove, even though they run other AI features comfortably.

On Mac, on-device Remove is Apple Silicon only. You'll need an M1 Pro or later (M1 Max, M2 Pro, M2 Max and newer are recommended for smooth use), 24GB of RAM or more, and macOS Tahoe (26.4) or newer. Intel Macs aren't supported for the on-device model.

How to Use the On-Device Remove Tool

Once your hardware qualifies and you're running Photoshop 27.7, it's all controlled from within the Remove tool itself.

1. Select the Remove tool from the toolbar, where it sits with the Spot Healing Brush and Healing Brush.

2. Open the Mode dropdown in the Options bar, where you'll see options such as Auto, GenAI On and GenAI Off.

3. Choose Device for Generative AI processing. Within that panel, find the Generative AI processing setting and switch it from Cloud to Device.

4. Download the on-device model. The first time you select Device, Photoshop prompts you to download it, just under 5GB. Confirm it and let it finish.

5. Paint away distractions. With Device selected, paint over unwanted objects as usual, and Photoshop will use the local model rather than the cloud to generate the replacement pixels.

6. Switch between Cloud and Device whenever you like, from the same Mode dropdown, if you want to compare quality or fall back to the cloud on less powerful hardware.

If the Device option stays dimmed, it usually means either your hardware doesn't meet the minimum spec or GPU acceleration is switched off in Photoshop's Performance preferences.

Who Will Benefit Most?

On-device Remove is particularly valuable for three groups.

Location, travel and event photographers

You often edit in the field or away from reliable internet. On-device Remove keeps your clean-up workflow working exactly the same wherever you are, hotel room, train, remote shoot or studio with spotty Wi-Fi.

High-volume retouchers

If a big chunk of your day goes on removing logos, stray hairs, dust, cables and background clutter, a faster, offline, privacy-friendly Remove tool makes that daily work smoother and more predictable, especially on time-critical jobs.

Commercial and editorial shooters with sensitive work

When you're dealing with unreleased campaigns or sensitive subjects, being able to say all the retouching was done on-device is a genuine advantage with clients and legal teams.

For casual users on modest hardware, the existing standard and cloud Remove modes will carry on doing the job perfectly well. But if your machine meets Adobe's on-device requirements, the new Remove model in Photoshop 27.7 is one of the most meaningful quality-of-life upgrades in the current release, especially if you live in the Remove tool all day and want its full power without always depending on the cloud.

Instantly Fix "Impossible" Glasses Reflections in Photoshop

Removing reflections from glasses has always been one of those jobs in Photoshop that's either felt impossible or just painfully tedious. In this tutorial, I'm showing you how the new Firefly Image Model 5 in the Photoshop Beta handles this specific problem in a way that I think you're going to find really useful.

I'm working with a portrait of Thomas Coulter, one of the veterans from my 39-45 Portraits Project, to walk you through exactly how it works.

The Challenge with Older Models

If you've tried using Generative Fill for this before, you'll know that older models like Firefly Image 1 could certainly remove a reflection, but they often introduced other problems at the same time. You'd sometimes end up with subtle changes to facial structure, eyebrows, or the shape of the glasses frames themselves. The reflection might be gone, but the portrait no longer looked quite right.

Why Firefly Image Model 5 is Worth Knowing About

Model 5 has been built with detail preservation as a priority. The idea is that it only changes what you've asked it to change, leaving everything else as close to the original as possible.

Worth knowing: this is a premium model, so it uses 10 generative credits rather than one. It also only produces a single variation, but given the quality of the result, that's rarely a problem.

How to Do It, Step by Step

1. Open Photoshop Beta - You'll need the Beta version to access the latest Firefly models. [00:56]

2. Make your selection - Use the Selection Brush Tool to paint over the reflections on the lenses. You don't need to be overly precise; going slightly over the frames is fine. [01:25]

3. Open Generative Fill - Click Generative Fill in the Contextual Taskbar. If you can't see it, go to Window > Contextual Taskbar. [01:49]

4. Choose the right model - This is the key step. In the Taskbar settings, look under Adobe Models and select Firefly Image Model 5 (Preview). [06:16]

5. Enter your prompt - Something simple like "remove the reflection from the glasses" is all you need. [05:32]

6. Generate - Hit Generate and give it around 10 to 12 seconds. [06:21]

The Results

What I find genuinely impressive here is that once the reflection is gone, everything else stays exactly as it was. The eyebrow hairs, the skin texture, the precise shape of the frames - all identical to the original file.

Now, Camera Raw and Lightroom do have reflection removal tools built in, and they're well worth trying, particularly on larger reflections. But for detailed areas like eyewear, where precision really matters, this approach in Photoshop gives you a level of control and accuracy that's hard to beat. If you've got portraits sitting in your archive that you've written off as too difficult, this is a good reason to dig them back out.

Fix IMPOSSIBLE Backgrounds Instantly ( Lightroom + Photoshop )

Recently, Steven Gotz, a member of the Photography Community on SKOOL ( LINK ), sent over a brilliant RAW file of a condor. Stunning subject, great light, one problem: a massive fence running right through the background.

Rather than leave it on the shelf, I figured it was the perfect excuse to put the latest updates in Lightroom and Photoshop Beta through their paces. What would have taken ages with the Clone Stamp tool a couple of years ago can now be sorted in seconds. Here's exactly how I did it, using two different workflows.

Workflow 1: Photoshop Beta with Firefly Image 5

This is the quickest route right now, and the results are genuinely impressive.

The key is using the new Firefly Image 5 (Preview) model inside Photoshop Beta. It's been built specifically for editing while preserving detail, which matters a lot when you're dealing with complex textures like feathers and rocky backgrounds.

1. From Lightroom to Photoshop Beta. Right-click the image in Lightroom and choose Edit In > Adobe Photoshop Beta.

2. Select All. Once you're in Photoshop, go to Select > All. This gives the AI the full context of the frame before you do anything.

3. Switch to Firefly Image 5. Click Generative Fill in the contextual taskbar. Here's the bit that matters: don't use the standard model. Switch it to Firefly Image 5 (Preview) from the dropdown.

4. The prompt. This model needs a prompt to work, unlike some of the others. I kept it simple: "remove the fence from this picture."

5. Refine the detail. The AI did a great job on the background, but because Firefly Image 5 currently outputs at 2K, the fine detail around the bird's eye and feathers was slightly softer than the original RAW. The fix is straightforward: use the Object Selection Tool to select the bird and the rock, then fill that area on the layer mask with black. That reveals the sharp original bird while keeping the AI-cleared background intact.

Workflow 2: Lightroom to Firefly Web

Not on the Photoshop Beta? No problem. You can get to the same place via Lightroom's sharing feature.

1. Share to Firefly. In Lightroom, hit the Share button (top right) and select Firefly: Edit an image. This opens your browser and drops the photo straight into the Adobe Firefly web interface.

2. Settings and generate. Select Firefly Image 5, bump the resolution to 2K, use the same prompt ("remove the fence from this picture"), and hit generate.

3. Back to Photoshop. Download the cleaned image, go back to Lightroom, and open the original file in the regular version of Photoshop.

4. Stack and align. Use File > Place Embedded to bring the Firefly-cleaned version in on top of your original. Rasterise the top layer, select both layers, then go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers to make sure everything lines up perfectly.

5. The masking trick. Same principle as Workflow 1: use the Object Selection Tool to select the bird and the rock, then hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) and click the mask icon. This hides the AI version of the bird and brings back the sharp, high-detail original underneath.

Why the masking step matters

This is the part I think is really important. It's not about letting AI take over the whole image. It's about using it to fix a specific problem, in this case the background, while keeping the actual subject exactly as it was captured in the RAW file. The integrity of the original is what you're protecting.

Have a look through your archives. Chances are there are shots you wrote off because of something in the background. It might be worth giving them another look.

NEW 💥 Photoshop's One-Click Auto Distraction Removal

Adobe has just dropped a seriously powerful update to the Remove Tool in the Photoshop Public Beta (version 27.6.0), and it’s a total game-changer for cleaning up your photos. It can now automatically scan your entire image, identify distractions across 26 different categories, and let you remove them with a single click.

Here is a quick look at how it works and how you can start using it to save yourself hours of manual cloning and healing.

What is the New "General Distractions" Feature?

Previously, the Remove Tool had specific buttons for "Wires and Cables" or "People." This new update introduces General Distractions. It uses generative AI to find things like trash cans, signs, vehicles, and even stray animals that might be cluttering up your shot.

How to Use It: A 3-Step Tutorial

Before you start, make sure you have GPU hardware acceleration turned on in your Photoshop settings (Preferences > Performance) to ensure the tool runs smoothly.

1. Select the Remove Tool

Head over to your toolbar and select the Remove Tool. In the options bar at the top, make sure Sample All Layers is ticked and, most importantly, check the Create New Layer box. This acts as a fail-safe, putting all your removals on a separate layer so you can easily bring things back if you change your mind later.

2. Find Your Distractions

In the options bar, click on the Find Distractions dropdown and choose General Distractions, then click Find. Photoshop will take a few moments to scan the image. When it’s finished, it will highlight potential distractions with color-coded overlays.

The cool part? The list of categories it shows you is dynamic. It won't show you all 26 categories; it only lists the ones it actually found in your specific photo—like "Vehicles," "Animals," or "Urban Elements."

3. Refine and Remove

You have total control over what stays and what goes:

• Toggle Categories: You can untick specific categories in the dropdown if Photoshop picked up something you actually want to keep (like a cool cloud it mistook for a "light diffusing element").

• Manual Overwrite: Use the plus (+) or minus (-) brush icons in the options bar to manually add areas to be removed or protect areas you want to save.

• The Big Reveal: Once you're happy with the selection, click the Tick icon. Photoshop will work its magic, and the distractions will vanish, seamlessly filling in the background.

Why This Matters

I've been testing this on complex street scenes and busy beach shots, and the results are mind-blowing. It handles everything from removing pigeons at someone's feet to rebuilding stone walls where a trash can used to be. It’s not just a time-saver; it’s doing work that used to require advanced cloning skills in just a few seconds.

Since this is currently in the Public Beta, if you run into anything unexpected, be sure to use the "Feedback" icon in the top right of Photoshop to let Adobe know. The more feedback we give them now, the better the final version will be.