The problem
Distractions in venue and portrait photos take time to retouch. If a photographer fixes 40 images a month and each takes 6 minutes to clone out by hand, that's 240 minutes, 4 hours a month.
What the AI does
Adobe's Photography plan page lists Lightroom (desktop, mobile and web), Lightroom Classic and Photoshop with 1TB of storage, and names Generative Remove in Lightroom as a way to clean up anything in your photos. Use it to take out bins, cables or signs that were not part of the moment. Adobe's Lightroom page lists 1,000 monthly generative credits on the Photography plan, and the page does not say how many a single removal uses. Look at every result closely and don't change what the photo is meant to show.
A worked example
A portrait and events photographer in Cambridge fixes about 5 images from each of 8 sessions a month, 40 images in total, mostly cluttered backgrounds.
Before
40 images at 6 minutes each by hand: 240 minutes, 4 hours a month
After
If Generative Remove plus a check takes about 2 minutes each: 80 minutes, about 1.3 hours a month
What it's worth
About 2.7 hours a month saved (160 minutes), worth about £93 at £35 an hour, if the tool works first time on many images (an assumption to test). Cost: £19.97 a month including VAT on the annual plan billed monthly, about £20, with Photoshop and 1TB of storage included. You may already pay for this plan.
How to set it up
- Start the free trial or check your Adobe plan includes Lightroom with Generative Remove.
- Try it on 10 real images and check how many credits each uses on your plan.
- Remove only things that were not part of the scene: temporary signs, bins, cables.
- Zoom in on every result to check for smudged or repeated textures.
- Keep the original file and note in your terms that you retouch images.
What goes wrong
- Don't remove or alter things in a way that misleads, such as hiding damage on a property for an estate agent or changing how a product looks in an ad. Altered images in advertising can mislead the viewer.
- Don't edit people's bodies or faces in a way they have not agreed to, or create synthetic versions of real people without their consent.
- Credits can run out. Check your plan's allowance before a heavy editing month.
- Check Adobe's terms on commercial use of generated content before supplying client work.