Retouch and clean up photos with AI in Photoshop

Rob de Winter shows how to erase signs, cables, and clutter with three cleanup tools.

Published August 20, 2026

00:01

Introduction and meet Rob de Winter

[Photoshop displays the zoomed in image of a green door with a red sign.]

[Rob de Winter]: If you shoot a lot of photos, you'll often end up with images where something needs a little cleaning up.

[The view switches to a photo of houses with orange roofs reflected in a canal.]

The Remove Tool is one of the best tools for that, specifically trained to remove elements from photos.

[Cut to Rob de Winter in his studio.]

I'm Rob de Winter, Adobe instructor, designer, and author from the Netherlands, and in this video, I'll show you three different ways to clean up your photos, including one that uses Adobe Firefly for situations where the Remove Tool alone isn't enough.

[Photoshop displays a storefront with a Stonebrakers Bakery sign, green doors and a streetlamp.]

Let's open our image in Photoshop.

00:27

Remove elements with a lasso or brush

Before removing anything, it's a good practice to work on a new empty layer.

So create one by clicking the + icon in the Layers panel.

Then select the Remove Tool from the Toolbar, and in the Options Bar, check Sample all layers.

By default, the Remove Tool only sees the layer you're working on, but with this option enabled, it sees everything below and places the result on the new layer.

You can use the Remove Tool in two ways: draw a lasso around an element to remove it all at once, or just paint over it directly.

Here I draw a lasso around the sign on the door, and then paint over the no parking sign.

Let's also remove the other signs on the other door.

01:13

Fill in complex areas like glass and windows

Now, with the advertising behind the windows, this is where it gets a bit more complex because the window consists of many small panes.

The Remove Tool would have to reconstruct each pane separately, which makes it very difficult to get a clean result.

Generative Fill with Firefly Image 5 is much better suited for this because it looks at the whole context at once and figures out what should be there.

Select the windows with the Selection brush, then click Generative Fill in the Contextual Task Bar, choose Firefly Image 5 in the Model dropdown and type, "Remove the advertisement behind the windows."

Then click Generate.

If the first result isn't quite right, just generate again.

The result here is really clean and actually looks really good.

[Photoshop switches to the canal-side house photo.]

Let's go to the next photo.

02:09

Clear multiple distractions at once

This photo has quite a few distractions - a car parked in front of the houses, a lamp post, and some other clutter.

You could paint over everything manually with the Remove Tool, but there is a faster way.

Create a new empty layer, select the Remove Tool, and click Find distractions and then the Find button next to the General distractions in the Options Bar.

Photoshop scans the whole image and categorizes everything it considers a distraction.

You don't always want to remove everything it finds, so be selective.

Here, I leave on Identified objects, Light-diffusion elements, and Vehicles, and turn off everything else.

Press enter or click the V icon in the Options Bar, and Photoshop removes all the selected elements at once.

There's still a lamppost I want to remove, but I want to be more precise with the selection.

Use the Selection brush to carefully paint over it.

After making a selection, a Remove button appears in the Contextual Task Bar.

It's the same as the Remove Tool, but it works from any selection, which sometimes gives you more control over exactly what gets removed.

After you click Remove, Photoshop automatically creates a new layer.

[Photoshop opens a vertical photo of a stone building with a white van parked in front.]

The last photo has power cables running across the sky, which is a classic distraction in photography.

Create a new empty layer again, select Remove Tool, and click Find distractions in the Options Bar.

This time click Remove next to Wires and cables.

Photoshop finds all the cables in the image and removes them in one go.

And by the way, if there had been tourists in this photo, you could have selected People in the same panel.

Photoshop would select them all and you can remove them all at once.

[Cut back to Rob in his studio.]

Now you've seen three ways to clean up your photos: the Remove Tool, Find distractions, and Generative Fill with Firefly Image 5 for the more complex situations.

Now give it a try yourself.

Again, I'm Rob de Winter, and I'll see you in one of the next videos.

What you’ll learn

Remove elements with a lasso or brush

The Remove Tool lets you draw around an object or paint directly over it to take it out of a photo. Working on a new layer with Sample All Layers on keeps the edit non-destructive.

Fill in complex areas like glass and windows

For trickier spots, like ads behind window panes, Generative Fill reads the whole scene and reconstructs what should be there. It handles detail that's difficult for the Remove Tool alone.

Clear multiple distractions at once

Find Distractions scans a photo and groups clutter like vehicles, wires, and light elements for quick removal. You can fine-tune the selection afterward for anything it misses.

Instruction by: Rob de Winter

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Cookies are small text files stored by your web browser when you use websites. There are also other technologies that can be used for similar purposes like HTML5 Local Storage, web beacons, and embedded scripts. These technologies help us do things like remembering you and your preferences when you return to our sites, measure how you use the website, conduct market research, and gather information about the ads you see and interact with.

If enabled:

We can improve your experience by tailoring the site and the content to things we think might be of interest
We can better keep track of your preferences — like what language you prefer to use
We will better understand your likely interests so we can provide you more relevant Adobe ads and content on non-Adobe websites and in non-Adobe apps
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View transcript

What you’ll learn

Remove elements with a lasso or brush

Fill in complex areas like glass and windows

Clear multiple distractions at once

Try these tutorials with Photoshop