11/20/24
9:00 am

How To Use Apple Intelligence To Clean Up Your Photos

One of the new Apple Intelligence tools is in the Photos app and allows you to clean up photos by removing objects or healing blemishes.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the new Apple Intelligence Cleanup feature in the Photos App.  
A new Apple Intelligence feature available in macOS Sequoia 15.1 and iOS 18.1 is the ability to cleanup photos using AI. What this basically means is that you can remove blemishes and remove whole objects from photos using artificial intelligence to fill in the pixels with what is most likely to be there. 
So let's start here on the Mac. Here I am in the Photos App and I'm going to use this new cleanup feature on this photo. I'm going to go to Edit first and then I'm going to look at the top here. I'm going to see, in addition to Adjust Filters & Crop, Cleanup. Otherwise instead of seeing Cleanup here you'll just see under Adjust one of the adjustment tools is a Retouch tool. That's the old tool and it is kind of algorithmic how it handles the pixels and it is mostly for removing blemishes. This could actually remove entire objects.  
Let's switch to Cleanup here. You can see there aren't really many options on the right. In fact the first time you use this it's actually going to have to download this feature and then there will be a short time when it is actually setting it up. But once it is all ready you'll just see the ability to adjust size here. It is the size of the brush you are using to clean things up. Now we need to remove items. Sometimes you actually see items highlighted that you can remove. But this image it doesn't show us any. So we're actually going to click and drag to get rid of things. Let's try an easy one first and get rid of the branch from a tree behind me as I was taking this photo. So I'm just going to drag here, like that, to show Photos what it is I want to get rid of. You can see it gets rid of it! I can use Command Z to Undo very easily. Let's try a smaller size here. I can more specifically choose what I want and it will get rid of it. It's kind of a fuzzy area. So if you don't perfectly outline what you want or maybe you take too much it will kind of figure it out. 
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Now the interesting thing about the brush size is it is dependent on your zoom level here. So, for instance, you can see the size of the brush there, set around 30. Now let's zoom in here and notice if I want to get rid of this person on the grass the brush size is about the same. Even though I zoomed in a lot so it is actually covering a much smaller area. You can see how well it handles that particular object. Let's try this person here on the steps. It does a fairly good job there. But it is definitely not perfect. For instance, let's go every here and you can see this person standing here between the two pools. If I try to get rid of him, by highlighting him like that, watch what happens. You can see it actually changes a much bigger area. If you look closely now this wall here of the pool doesn't make sense anymore. But I have zoomed in a lot. If I were to zoom out you really don't notice it too much. You can certainly lower the size a bit and do it bit by bit, like that. Then continue and maybe get a better result like that by kind of working with it a bit. But you're always going to get more tools and more options in an advance app, like say using PhotoShip, for instance, to do this. In the Photos tool you're just going to get this basic cleanup that's easy for everybody to use. It works in most cases. 
Some other parts of this is that you can still use all the regular tools for editing here which include this button here that allows you to temporarily see the original by holding it. Then releasing. So you can kind of compare and see how it looks. You also can always revert to the original. Photos is a non-destructive editor. So any adjustments, filters, cropping, and all of that can always go back to the original photo that's there. It never replaces it with your changes. So that's nice to know. You can make changes like this, maybe export it to post online or print it out, but you can always then go back to the original photo when you're done. If you've made other changes to the photo, like let's go into Adjustments here and adjust the colors, like that, then go into Cleanup and then use the cleanup tool here, you can of course use Undo to undo those last two steps. But you can also Reset Cleanup and you can see it just resets that. It doesn't take away the adjustments as Revert to Original would.
Now sometimes when you go to Edit a photo and you go to Cleanup what will happen is some of the objects will be identified as things you might want to remove. Notice here that my backpack and the water bottle are both glowing. So I don't actually have to use the brush at all. As long as I'm in Cleanup Mode here I can just click and it will remove that object. So you can see how it was able to easily remove those two objects just by clicking. If I want to remove more I can simply brush just like before. 
Let's see how far we can go with this. Here's another photo and I like this photo except that there is this light pole here casting a long shadow. It would be neat to be able to see it without that. So we're going to use the Cleanup tool and let's first try to get rid of the shadow. So I'm going to use the brush here and I'm going to brush over the whole thing. Let's see how it does. It does a pretty good job there of getting rid of the shadow. Now let's get rid of the base here and we see it does a good job of that too. But the pole is still technically there. It is behind the branches of this tree. Let's move in a little bit and get rid of the entire pole. So I'm going to just highlight this whole area like that and then let's see how it does. It does a pretty good job. It really kind of looks like the pole never was there. It's not perfect but if I want to have a nice picture to look at or maybe create a Desktop wallpaper or something like that then this is perfectly fine. It works really well. 
But it could also be used to get rid of blemishes just like the previous Retouch tool did. As an example here instead of showing somebody's face let's actually look at a pumpkin. Let's see if we can get rid of this blemish on the pumpkin by using the Cleanup Tool. So I'm going to select that like that and you can see it does a fairly good job of getting rid of that. I can continue to work with it a little bit here to make it even better. So the same would work with various objects including, say, skin.
Now let's take a look at doing it on the iPhone. It works in a similar way. I'm here in the Photos App looking at an individual photo and I'm going to tap on the Editing button here at the bottom. You can see now that I'm in the Editing Mode I've got tools at the bottom here. As long as I've got 18.1 and my iPhone is capable of using Apple Intelligence, which would be for instance the iPhone 15 Pro models or the iPhone 16's, then I've got the Cleanup Tool here at the bottom. I can use the Cleanup Tool here. It's going to download it if it needs it and then go to Prepare and now once I've got that I can use it in the same way. So I can, for instance, get rid of this up there if I want. I can move in here, let's go really close, and look for these people here. I can get rid of them as well, like that. I can do the same here. I've got Undo right here or just Reset the entire thing to take away all the changes. Just like with any photo you can Revert to Original. It always has that original there. 
So that is how it works. It's a pretty simple tool. What I do suggest that you try it now. Get it downloaded because that may take a few minutes depending upon your connection and play around with it remembering that you can just revert to the original photo when you're done. So there is no harm in testing it out on the photos you have now so you know how to use it when you need it. Hope you round this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 15 Responses to “How To Use Apple Intelligence To Clean Up Your Photos”

Tom Eckles

2 months ago

Yet another informative lesson Gary. A question: When you say " I've got Undo right here or just Reset the entire thing to take away all the changes." I did not see, nor understand where the Undo right here is located. I have an iPhone 15 pro max 18.1. Thanks, Tom

Reinaldo Almeida

2 months ago

Hi! Even after updating to Sequoia 15.1.1, the Retouch Tool is not back and the Clean Up tool still keeps causing pixellation on anything that you try to retouch. Any ideia of when Apple will fix it?

Paul Guenther

2 months ago

Hi Gary,
I went up to my menu and the Edit option. I tried to send you a screen shot of the menu as I see it,but apparently I am not allowed to do this. The menu I see is nothing like what you describe. I am running Sequoia 15.1.1 If I select a photo and go up to edit, my only options are copy, select all, deselect all, find, font, writing tools, spelling and grammer, autofill, start dictation, Emoji & symbols. Is there something in settings I need to fix?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Tom: Look closely at that point in the video and you'll see I move to the top left and click the button there. Right at 7:42.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Reinaldo: The Clean Up tool replaces the Retouch tool. To make it work better zoom in more on that area and make the brush "Size" smaller.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Paul: Sounds like you are going to the Edit MENU instead of using the Edit button. Watch where I am clicking at 0:41.

Jim Allred

2 months ago

When I try to remove blemishes from skin I always get the pixelation.
Apple calls it a safety feature. Can this be disabled?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Jim: Not sure what you mean. If you zoom in enough, you'll see pixels. Using "Clean Up" can make it worse, but it should look better when you zoom back out. I don't know how the references to "safety feature" comes in here.

Peter Eckle

2 months ago

Gary, I updated to Sequoia 15.1 and there is no Clean Up function on the top of the screen, next to the other functions.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Peter: Did you check to see if your Mac meets the requirements? I show the link near the start.

Peter Eckle

2 months ago

My Mac serial number said it was purchased in 2020, but looks like the unit was actually a 2019 unit. The requirements for Mac showed it needed M1 or later. My processor says 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i3, so am to assume although I was able to update to Sequoia 15.1.1, it doesn't mean anything.
Frustrating when Apple develops software updates that are not functional in the device you own.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 months ago

Peter: Right, you have an Intel processor, not an Apple Silicon processor (M1, M2, etc).
What would the alternative be for Apple though? If they develop a feature that uses the tech on the Apple Silicon processors, then should they not release it because people with older Macs can't use it?

Sheldon

2 months ago

Thanks bunches

Brian

2 weeks ago

Thanks Gary, a useful video. You mentioned using Clean Up on skin to remove blemishes and demonstrated on the photo of the pumpkin - issue I've encountered when trying to remove wrinkles from skin is Clean Up adding similar looking wrinkles to the area I've painted over with the brush, or darkening areas around the wrinkle or adding pixellated content to the skin (in areas where Retouch would be able to remove oily patches on skin). Results with Clean up were not natural looking. Any tips?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 weeks ago

Brian: The only other option you have, and it is a good one, is to use an external editor. Photos makes it easy to edit a photo in place with an external editor. Something like Pixelmator Pro, for instance.

How To Use Apple Intelligence To Clean Up Your Photos

Comments: 15 Responses to “How To Use Apple Intelligence To Clean Up Your Photos”

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