This week we’ll take a look at a new feature in Photoshop (Camera Raw to be specific) on how to remove reflections from your photos. It’s super easy to use and can be hit or miss – but when it works, it can really help save a photo. Enjoy!
About Me
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Since this preview feature requires Raw, I have a question that’s a little off subject. I have a Galaxy S23 Ultra and when I turn on Raw, the photos always come out with extreme color noise. Unfortunately, Samsung’s support has degraded in the last 4-5 years and I find their chat agents know much less than I do about the phones. Just wondering if you’ve experienced this or heard of others having this issue? It’s entirely possible the issue is just something I don’t know to do (or not do).
It’s possible the photos are noisier. You’re shooting raw which means you’re telling your camera/phone you don’t want it to edit the photo. When you take a regular photo, it’s more than likely that the phone is doing processing for you to remove the noise. Just about every phone is doing some amount of noise reduction and sharpening on the photo if it’s not raw.
Thanks Matt
Looks great. Thanks for the heads up.
Very cool beta feature. Thank you for pointing it out.
Matt. Thank you. Works fast and efficiently to remove reflections and much more. Message says that refection removal will not work with TIF format. No problem! Paint over anything you want to remove, in whole (telephone pole) or in part (reflection on a window or other surface). Select “subtract” and press “remove”. The distraction is gone.
This has to be some kind of special voodoo magic! Now I can’t wait to create some photos with really bad reflections to try it out!
Photo taken through an airplane window contains dirt and streaks on the window. Nothing done.
The “processed” image was darker compare to the source one.
Decreasing the slider darkened image even more.
This feature isn’t working for me. All I get is a load of pixelation.
As a past US Air Force photographer, one of our jobs was to take official portraits in our studio. As, I’m sure, any studio photographer knows, it can be a challenge to remove reflections from eye ware. I’m very curious to see how well this feature handles that scenario
I haven’t seen or heard of anyone having much luck with it for that but of course share your results. Thanks.
Hopefully they add it soon!
I tried to remove reflections after a shoot for a shelter magazine yesterday. One of the constant difficulties shooting interiors is mirrors where the camera and tripod are reflected. Sadly the reflection removal did not work in that situation. I’ll have to continue with content aware and other tools. Still this looks like a great feature to shoot photos I would have otherwise passed by.
Great video
Interesting. I was experimenting following your tutorial with some images where I had taken shots with the intent of getting a reflection in water and tried to apply the reflection removal to that. As I expected it did not work, however it did darken the water which had the effect of enhancing the reflection it I backed it off to around 50%.
Hey Matt
So interesting. I never miss your teaching
My new best friend
I am enjoying the system course
For the first time a course that I can follow and not not get stuck with
You can publish this if you like
Best Melvyn Cape Town 🙏😊
This could come in very handy for aquarium photography. I’ve never been able to get a shot without at least some reflection off the glass in one. 🙂
Tried it on a few of my photos taken on a bus tour. Unfortunately the results weren’t comparable to yours. Perhaps landscapes are more challenging. Will be looking forward to this evolving.
Bummer, tried with glasses reflection and it didn’t work – now that would be a hellp
After checking the Technology Previews box , the Raw app has to be restarted for the reflections choice to be available.
Does the same function exist in LR Classic?
Thanks Matt – I never thought of going into the negative.
Reflections are a common problem when traveling in tour buses. Taking pics through windows generally wind up with some reflections. I have used a rubber/plastic lens shield to keep the lens area as free of reflections as possible, often with imperfect results.
This is a very helpful feature for ‘tour travelers’ Thanks for bringing this up to our attention.
I have the current version of PS. When in Camera Raw, I click on the gear icon and check the box under Technology previews. Then I go to remove icon and I don’t see anything about reflections. I just did a photo that doesn’t have a reflection. Does it have to have a reflection for the reflection edit to show up?
I take a lot of photos at the zoo when I go with the grandkids. Many of the exhibits are behind glass and this will be a big help for those.
Wow
If you do not see the new feature in Camera Raw, be sure you have first updated to the latest version of PS. Then open a raw photo in Camera Raw, click on the gear icon (upper right), turn on the anti-reflective feature, and click OK.
Thank you, you make all of this very easy to understand.
When I try to use this, the result is a multicolored pixelated image. In other words, I get a corrupted image. I am on a 2019 iMac but I have read on line that some Windows users are experiencing the same issue. Some have suggested this is a Graphics Processor issue. Is anyone else experiencing the same issue? Anyone with a solution?
I get exactly the same – hopefully just a bug that will be fixed as was looking forward to using this.
Thanks
(From the UK so forgive any differences in terminology) I photograph birds feeing in our garden and on hanging feeders. Our windows are double glazed so any reflections are from two transparent surfaces. Unfortunately the phots with the double reflections lead to peculiar results. I wonder if anyone else had noticed the phenomenon.
Yeah – I can’t make it work through double glazing
Out of curiosity and just to make things more challenging I tried removing the reflections that the appeared on a glass table-top (also glazed). That did not work.
Love the tabby!
I checked the availability. It is as I expected. If you open the file from Lightroom as a Smart Object and double click to get to CR then it is available, but it is not available if you use CR as a filter (either smart or otherwise). I did the test on the same layer so the results should be consistent.
I am signed in! Trying to look at your tutorials from the link on your web site, but I keep getting told to sign in.
We know what beta does.
Not available on mine