Adobe just pushed a significant round of updates to Photoshop, and several of them are directly relevant to cleaning up photos and managing complex edits. If you use Photoshop as part of your workflow, at least three or four of these features will change how you approach specific tasks.
Coming to you from Matt Kloskowski, this thorough walkthrough covers the latest Photoshop updates with a photographer-specific lens. Kloskowski leads with what he considers the biggest addition: a "general distractions" option inside the Remove tool. Previously, the Find Distractions feature could only auto-detect people or wires and cables. Now it casts a much wider net, color-coding everything it finds and letting you toggle individual categories on and off before removing anything. In a cityscape example, it picks out cranes and urban elements in the distance that you might otherwise spend significant time removing by hand. It's a genuine upgrade to an already useful tool.
Reflection removal also gets an upgrade in this update, now available directly in the main Photoshop interface rather than only inside Camera Raw. Kloskowski notes it tends to perform better here than it did in Camera Raw, and the "Best" quality setting produces noticeably cleaner results, though it takes longer to process. The feature outputs a separate reflection layer so you can see exactly what it's attempting to remove and compare before and after. There's also an expanded generative fill workflow with access to new models, including Firefly 5, which Kloskowski says preserves detail more effectively than previous versions. He also flags something worth knowing: models marked with a crown icon in the interface will draw from your generative credits, so you're not just burning through a free resource when you select one of those.
The update also includes a redesigned Actions panel, dynamic text shaping options for type layers, an AI-powered layer rename and cleanup tool, and a new Rotate Object feature. The Rotate Object tool lets you reorient a subject on a separate layer, but because AI has to reconstruct the parts of the subject that weren't originally visible, the results can look generated rather than photographic. Kloskowski is candid about its limitations for his style of shooting. The layer cleanup tool, on the other hand, is straightforwardly useful if you ever work with layered composites. It strips empty layers and attempts to name remaining layers based on their visual content.
Kloskowski doesn't just list features. He gives you a real sense of which ones are likely to earn a place in a regular workflow and which ones are more situational. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Kloskowski.
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