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iOS 18.1: Remove Unwanted Objects From Your Photos

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Apr 12, 2001
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Say you've captured a stunning sunset at the beach, but there's a trash can ruining the foreground. Or maybe you've taken the perfect family portrait, only to later realize there's a stranger in the background. With iOS 18.1's new Clean Up tool, Apple aims to make such photo frustrations a thing of the past. Here's how it works.

iOS-18-Photos-Clean-Up-Feature-1.jpg

Clean Up uses Apple Intelligence to analyze your photos and intelligently remove unwanted elements while preserving the natural look of your images. Granted it's not quite as powerful as desktop editing tools, but it brings impressive object removal capabilities right to your iPhone, letting you fix photo distractions in seconds rather than spending time and money on complex editing software.
Clean Up is particularly clever when it comes to automatic detection – it can identify obvious unwanted elements in your photos and suggest removing them with a single tap. But even when you need to make manual selections, the process is pretty straightforward.

How to Use Clean Up in iOS 18.1

Here's how to use Clean Up to enhance your photos:
  1. In the Photos app, select a photo that you'd like to clean up.
  2. Tap the Edit button (the three horizontal sliders).
  3. Tap Clean Up. (The tool may need to download the first time you select it, but it won't take long.)
    clean-up-tool-photos2.jpg

    If any object has a luminescent glow in the picture, Clean Up has identified it for potential removal – tap to select it, or tap, brush, or circle something else you want to remove. If it makes your selection easier, pinch to pan and zoom.
    Tap Done to finish.
    clean-up-tool-photos1.jpg

Getting the Best Results

Clean Up performs best when working with smaller objects set against clear, uncluttered backgrounds. That's not to say it can't handle various editing tasks, but it's mainly designed for removing unwanted elements from the background of your photos rather than making major foreground alterations. For example, removing a street sign from behind your subject might work, but trying to remove someone from the front of a crowded group shot likely won't produce the results you're hoping for.

There are a few limitations to keep in mind. The tool isn't compatible with Live Photos (using Clean Up automatically disables Live Photo functionality). You can't use Clean Up on videos either. All other types of images, including screenshots and older photos not taken with your iPhone, are fair game though.

For transparency, Apple adds a note to the photo's metadata indicating AI editing has been applied. And don't worry about making mistakes – all Clean Up edits are fully reversible by tapping Edit and selecting Revert to Original.

Article Link: iOS 18.1: Remove Unwanted Objects From Your Photos
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/ios-use-clean-up-tool-photos/
It works OK. I've seen this on other brands for a while, and I'm sure it will get better over time.
 
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tardman91 said:
It's been pretty lousy in the few examples I've tried it on.
Click to expand...

Same. I've tried it on about a dozen photos and none were usable.

Last night I used it on a photo of my wife playing cello at a backyard event from the weekend. There was a dude's head in way of right side of the cello body, so I tried to remove him and it replaced him with leaves (tree was behind her), so there was a big half-circle cutout of the cello body replaced with leaves. Tried it with Google Photos on my wife's Pixel and it worked perfectly; it finished out the body of the cello and looked real.. Oh well.
 
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Reactions: Oceadge, decypher44, redbeard331 and 9 others
Amazingly this works in the UK

I understood that AI wasn't for us until 18.2.

Apple aren't being very clear on this and what to expect especially outside the USA.

Perhaps it's a mistake that this works under 18.1 in the UK... as it's not documented at all. But I suppose AI features that are 'language dependent' are writing tools etc and image cleanup isn't language dependent so therefore available for all on 18.1?

Would have been nice to get a heads up Apple!
 
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Reactions: attila and orbital~debris
It's ok. If you don't care about all the cloning it does to replace unwanted object. Just crazy how something that has been built into Photoshop for YEARS is called AI with Apple and it's in "beta". Lol

Between this, the sh!tty photos app I would probably (can't believe I am saying this) would look at Android. However, I am deeply ingrained in the eco system and cannot switch. Really getting tired of it.

Still haven't fixed the squared of notifications on the lock screen. 3 OS' later.
 
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Reactions: Oceadge, eifelbube, r8to1 and 3 others
jonnysods said:
Pretty wild that you can do that type of editing that easily now.
Click to expand...

Before you give Apple too much credit, Google/Android had this ability over 2 years ago...


It's great that this feature finally shows up for iDevices. Hopefully it will work at least as well as it did in gen 1 of Android back in 2021-22. Then again, I'm still hoping for Maps data accuracy to catch up with Google Maps.
 
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Reactions: decypher44, ikir, redbeard331 and 4 others
Just tried it. It works just ok and identifies things I don’t want taken out and gives no option for the things I do want taken out. Maybe will evolve over time.
 
I tried it and found it to work better than expected. However, year over year Apple touts their camera’s superior quality but then one needs to be very forgiving when evaluating the picture quality after using the Clean Up tool.
 
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I’m so pissed that apple products purchased in China don’t have this (and other features). I’ve already returned my Mini 7, but I’m stuck with an iPad Pro M4 and a 16 Pro that now seemed gimped while my kids can do this on their iPad Airs. All because I didn’t wait 2 months to buy it in the US (which I would have if I had known).

If anyone knows the best way to utilize AppleCare to switch my devices for US versions, I’m all ears. Most places honor the AppleCare agreements (and I’ve done it in the US based on Chinese AppleCare in the past), but I don’t want to just destroy a device. Perhaps if I explain it to them and tell them I don’t want to “accidentally” destroy my device for the switch, they’ll let me replace it at the standard AppleCare replace rate.
 
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Reactions: Mother Nature and ikir
stocklen said:
Amazingly this works in the UK

I understood that AI wasn't for us until 18.2.

Apple aren't being very clear on this and what to expect especially outside the USA.

Perhaps it's a mistake that this works under 18.1 in the UK... as it's not documented at all. But I suppose AI features that are 'language dependent' are writing tools etc and image cleanup isn't language dependent so therefore available for all on 18.1?

Would have been nice to get a heads up Apple!
Click to expand...

Indeed!

I saw this post and just thought "guess I'll revisit this in December 🙄…" but it's working for me and I've not altered my iPhone language setting from UK English to US English.

Seems unusual there is a download involved for everyone the first time you tap 'Clean Up' – I wonder why the functionality isn't baked-in to iOS 18.1, especially as it is the first release with Apple Intelligence features…

1730206384110.jpeg
 
Overall this feature is a 4 out of 10 for me for one massive reason…

Safety Filter!

I was excited about Apple’s new AI “Clean Up” feature in the Photos app, but it’s a letdown for me.

The main issue is that I can’t even edit non-nude photos. The Clean Up tool pixelates anything you try to remove, even if it’s not nudity in Apple’s eyes.

For example, I have a shirtless photo of myself at the beach wearing shorts and sandals. I tried to remove a trash can, a dog, and a plane, and all of them were pixelated. This happens to any photo that “appears” to have nudity in Apple’s eyes, which is confusing.

I thought this was a glitch, but after searching on Reddit and Google, I found that many people are experiencing the same issue. It seems to have started in some of the later betas of iOS 18.1, and people have reported multiple complaints to Apple through the developer portal or feedback option.

I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t allow users to choose whether to remove or pixelate objects, or why Apple has an issue with people editing photos with nudity. The photo shouldn’t be Apple’s concern, when I use the Magic Eraser feature in the Google Photos app or any other app that removes objects from a photo, I have no issues.

The feature is decent, but it’s useless to me right now unless Apple makes changes.
 
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Reactions: Tim Apple’s Glasses, oneteam, decypher44 and 3 others
Maybe it’s just the photos I’ve tried it on but these eraser / cleanup features never seem to work very well for me, in iOS or Android.
 
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