Photoshop adds a bunch of AI features including a ‘Distraction Removal’ tool

Adobe announced a bunch of new AI features for Photoshop on Monday, including its generative tool that lets you easily “remove common distractions” from images. Yes, it’s very similar to the company’s existing “Generative Remove” tool, as well as Google’s Magic Eraser, Apple Intelligence’s Clean Up, and Samsung’s Galaxy AI tools, which let you wipe pesky details of reality from your pics.

In a blog post by Photoshop product manager Pam Clark, the company detailed more features for the graphics editing platform, which use Adobe’s generative AI model, Firefly. Highlights include a “Distraction Removal” tool within the existing “Remove” tool added last year, which lets you circle objects or people in the background to get rid of them.

The similar “Generative Remove” tool is now widely available in Adobe’s other image processing platform, Lightroom, having been launched in beta earlier this year.

Here’s Adobe’s example of the “Distraction Removal” tool in action:

Adobe has also added its Photoshop “Generative Expand” tool to InDesign, which lets you make an image larger using the crop tool, then uses generative AI to fill the frame with extended imagery. Plus, there’s a new Adobe Substance 3D Viewer app out in beta through the Creative Cloud platform, which lets you integrate 3D content into 2D Photoshop designs more easily. You can read more about Adobe’s other AI features in the blog post.

Adobe already added a suite of AI tools to Photoshop in April, including the ability to generate and edit images from text prompts — Adobe has updated this tool further in its latest iteration. But the update was instantly met with concerns over copyright — Mashable’s Cecily Mauran has a full report on these concerns.

With the latest announcement of AI tools, Clark made sure to check the box and include a nod to creatives in the blog post and point readers to Adobe’s public statement on AI-generated imagery; a corporate must in a time of increasing concern about this among illustrators, graphic designers, and other creatives.

“Our commitment to creatives is at the core of everything we do, with generative AI features designed to serve as a creative companion that streamlines your creative process,” Clark’s post reads. “As we develop these advanced technologies, we take pride in the fact that we do so responsibly and always respect the rights of creators.”

It’s been a rough year for Adobe following the debacle that saw the company update its Terms of Use. Users were outraged about ownership of their work after Adobe announced a vaguely worded new AI policy about AI model training. The company could have used a “Distraction Removal” tool there.