Today’s Question: I feel like Photoshop now has countless tools for image cleanup, from the old-fashioned Clone Stamp tool to the newer tools where some can leverage AI. Is there a single tool you recommend as the best starting point for removing basic blemishes on a photo in Photoshop?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I consider the Remove tool to be the best go-to tool for typical blemish removal. I generally use it with AI turned off and only enable AI if the initial cleanup doesn’t work great. For more complex scenarios the Generative Fill command is a great place to start.
More Detail: As someone who actually remembers when the only image-cleanup tool in Photoshop was the Clone Stamp tool, I can certainly appreciate the impression that there are more cleanup tools now than you might know what to do with. Some are really only useful in special scenarios, some I don’t consider all that useful in a typical workflow, and others work remarkably well.
At this point, I consider the Remove tool to be the best starting point for removing basic blemishes from a photo. This tool is found under the button for the Spot Healing Brush tool on the toolbar, so you can either right-click or click and hold on that button to bring up a flyout menu, where you can select the Remove tool.
On the Options bar for the Remove tool there’s a popup at about the center of the option controls that enables you to choose whether to use AI (which in turn means using your Generative AI credits). The default setting is “Auto”, but I suggest setting this to “Generative AI off” for your initial attempt. This setting will generally provide very good results, and helps preserve your Generative AI credits.
If the initial cleanup isn’t great, you can enable AI and try again. In this case I suggest that you undo the initial cleanup, and then try again with AI enabled. In many cases this will provide a superior result, but there is also a greater risk that odd image artifacts will be added based on the AI processing.
There are certainly other tools that can be helpful for cleaning up blemishes of various types. For example, for more advanced scenarios the Generative Fill command works great for removing a blemish in a selected area, including the option to enter a prompt for AI to designate what you want done with the selected area of the image.
