Today’s Question: You demonstrated the option for removing power lines automatically in Photoshop. Is the same feature available in Lightroom Classic?
Tim’s Quick Answer: No, there isn’t a power line removal feature (at least not yet) in Lightroom Classic, but the latest update does include a Distraction Removal feature for removing reflections and people automatically.
More Detail: During a recent presentation I demonstrated the options for automatically removing wires and cables (such as power lines) as well as people using the Remove tool in Photoshop. While that same capability doesn’t exactly exist in Lightroom Classic, the latest update to version 14.4 (or Camera Raw 17.4 or Lightroom 8.4) includes the new Distraction Removal feature for reflections and people.
The new feature can be found by selecting the Remove tool from the small toolbar below the histogram on the right panel in the Develop module. In the Distraction Removal section, you’ll see options for Reflections and People.
The Reflections option is for removing reflections such as when you photograph through glass. Simply turn on the Apply checkbox in the Reflections section to have the reflections removed. If needed you can then tone down the effect by reducing the slider value, which by default will be set to 100%.
The People option is obviously for removing distracting people from an image. To get started, click the People heading to expand this section, and people will be detected in the image. A colored overlay with an edit pin will appear in areas of the photo where people were detected. If you want to prevent a person from being removed, you can click the edit pin for that person and then click the trash can icon to the right of the Selected text that appears on the right panel. When you’re ready to remove the selected people, click the Remove button, and the people will be removed automatically.
Once you’ve removed people from a photo, an edit pin will be visible for each area of the image where a person was found. You can click on the edit pin for an area and then cycle through the three variations that were created by clicking the arrows to the right of the Variations label on the right panel. You can also click the Generate button to process the area again if you want to try to get a better result.
