GENERATIVE FILL VS REMOVE TOOL AI IN PHOTOSHOP, WHEN TO USE EACH TOOL

TWO NEW AI-POWERED PHOTOSHOP TOOLS CAN REMOVE ANYTHING FROM IMAGES. WHAT IS THE BEST?

With all the excitement around Generative Fill in Photoshop, its kind of overshadowed another amazing new ai tool. The remove tool, is equally an amazing, and maybe even more useful? Watch the video, or read on to see.

I made a tutorial on the Remove Tool when it was in Photoshop beta. Now its in the shipping version.

I have made a course on Generative Fill in Photoshop. Check it out here

Before I explain the differences in the tools, lets put them through their paces. The video shows the settings and variations of this basic theme I used.

THE REMOVE TOOL

For the Remove tool, I created a new layer and then painted on the objects I wanted to remove.Creating anew layer gives non destructive use. Make sure to turn on Sample all layers for it to work. The remove tool in in Photoshop beta and also Photoshop 24.5 or newer.

The remove tool, is nested under the spot healing brush. If it doesn’t show in the toolbar if you are using a workspace preset. Click the 3 dot menu on the toolbar and choose edit toolbar to show the tool if its missing.

Make a new Layer

Paint over the object you want to remove

It removed the object and rebuilds the pixels behind the object based on the surrounding pixels and ai. Much better than Content aware fill, which is not ai.

I also removed the shadow in the video.

MEET GENERATIVE FILL

Generative fill is only in Photoshop beta right now. It only works on the cloud, so an internet connection is required. Generative fill is capable of creating objects and extending a canvas, In this comparison, we are only going to use it for object removal. I have plenty of other tutorials on other usage of Generative Fill.

For this tutorial, I used the lasso tool to make selections, and then chose, Generative Fill

Generate to fill with Generative fill, which uses a machine learning model than has been training on millions of images from Adobe stock.

It fills the area the car used to be with relevant pixels.

REMOVING A LARGE OBJECT WITH REPETITIVE BACKGROUND.

Lets remove this cabin.

Starting with Generative Fill.

Make a selection with the lasso tool.

Choose Generative Fill>Generate, leaving the prompt blank.

Tip: According the Adobe documentation, adding words like remove, don’t work. If you want to remove something, leave the text prompt empty. “Currently, the prompts used for the description are supported in English only. For best results, use descriptive nouns and adjectives in text prompts instead of instructive prompts like, “fill the area” or “create a scene“.”

Here you can see it didi a decent job.

Let’s grab the remove tool

Paint over the building and release

We also get a decent result. Although with this, we can see some repetition in the trees.

On close examination, the fill with Remove is the same resolution as the original image. It also works faster than Generative Fill.

If you look at Generative Fill results up close, they are soft and pixelated. That is because Gen-Fill uses a maximum resolution of 1024×1024 px to fill a selected area. This will change in the future. Here is a tip to get better resolution.

REMOVING A DIFFICULT OBJECT FROM A PICTURE

In this shot, we want to remove the tower.

With the Remove tool, paint over the tower first.

Then remove the power lines, it works well.

The moment of truth. How will it fare, while painting over an area of semi transparency, such as this veil.

It works wonderfully!

Let’s attempt generative fill now.

Choose the tower.

Click Generate > Generative Fill.

Oops, not so well here. None of the 3 variations are any better.

Lets try selecting the area through the veil.

Not awful at all

Be aware that generative fill performed significantly better if the complete tower was selected in a single selection. It tries to expand rather than replace an object if you only select a portion of it.

You can’t type remove because it doesn’t recognise such kinds of commands; I also tried sky, but I also received strange outcomes.

REMOVING A PERSON, WITH A COMPLEX BACKGROUND

Starting With Gen Fill. Make a selection with the lasso.

And this did a fantastic job.

Same thing with Remove tool.

A very muddled result in the background.

Applying the Remove tool a few more times over the background changed it into a more acceptable result, although not as good as gen-fill on this one.

REMOVING A FACE

Let remove a person from this group.

Make a choice using the lasso tool.

Select Generate > Generative Fill

On all 3 variations, Gen-Fill added a new face instead of removing the person entirely. On a second attempt, it did the same thing.

Let’s try the remove tool

I had to use it on smaller areas to rouch up the result, but it was very easy to remove the person.

THE IMPLICATION
Each tool seems to perform well in particular situations and with particular kinds of photographs.

Although it can handle more complicated backdrops, the erase tool performs best on smaller regions and simpler backgrounds. You may need to use it several times to get the desired results.

Because the uninstall tool is installed locally and doesn’t need an internet connection, it is quicker.

Due to the results being in the shipping version of Photoshop, they are high resolution and ready for use.

The Generative Fill can actually generate objects and thus works well on complex backgrounds, but remember its still low resolution and not yet for commercial purposes (beta).

The very best solution, is to use both together. I often start with Generative Fill and then use the remove tool to manually tweak the results.

I hope you found this tutorial useful, definitely check out the video if you haven’t, there is so much more o be gleaned than this brief writing.