When you hear the term “generative AI,” you may think of computer-generated images—whether photorealistic or pure fantasy—created entirely from text prompts. But in Adobe Lightroom, generative AI is used for a suite of task-specific tools that save time and make it easier to enhance the photos you’ve taken.

Here’s a tour of Lightroom’s most useful AI-assisted tools—and how to make the most of them.

Digital photo repair used to be limited to copying “good” pixels and pasting them over dust spots and other small blemishes—an approach that doesn’t work well with larger items and complex backgrounds. Lightroom’s Generative Remove uses Adobe Firefly to replace unwanted objects with reconstructed imagery that blends in seamlessly with the rest of your photo.

In the Remove tool, click the Use Generative AI checkbox and paint over the area you want to remove, leaving some extra room around the edges for the tool to work with. (If you’re removing an item with defined edges, turn on Detect Objects to better define the area to remove.)

Click Remove and Lightroom removes the object and generates several options for filling the area; click the Variations arrows to browse them. (Not happy with the choices? Click Generate to get a new set.)

If the unwanted objects in your photos are people or window reflections, Lightroom’s Distraction Removal feature (located in the Remove tool) makes quick work of detecting and removing them.

Click People and Lightroom identifies all the people in the photo, marking each with a blue dot; click Remove to replace them with generated content that seamlessly fills the space. (Want to keep a particular person? Delete their blue dot before clicking Remove.)

Click Reflections > Apply to reduce or remove glass reflections in your image; the Amount slider lets you choose just the right amount of reflection to keep.

Photo pros use specific lenses and settings to create gorgeous portraits of subjects that pop against soft backgrounds; Portrait mode in the Camera app on iPhone provides a similar effect. Lightroom’s Lens Blur feature can create a similar look with any photo.

In the Lens Blur section of Edit tools, just click Apply—Lightroom examines the image to estimate a depth map and apply background blur. (If you’re editing a Portrait mode photo, Lens Blur will use the depth data already captured by the camera.)

To customize the result, use the Blur Amount slider to adjust the amount of background blur; the Bokeh buttons let you simulate different lens types, while the Bokeh Boost slider adjusts the brightness of background light sources. But the real power is the Focus Range slider, which lets you control the depth of the effect. (For example, you can use it to make sure someone standing behind your subject is also in focus.) And don’t miss the Refinement controls, which let you “paint” areas that should be more or less in focus.

Masking lets you select part of an image so you can adjust only that part instead of the entire photo—for instance, you could alter the hue of your subject’s clothes without affecting similar colors elsewhere. Lightroom’s AI-based masking lets you mask specific areas such as the sky or people without having to laboriously paint them by hand.

For example, when editing a photo with a person, click the Subject button in the Masking panel: Lightroom determines the most likely subject in the photo and creates a mask for it. If the subject is a person, click the person in the People panel—the app gives you the option of restricting the mask to features such as eyes, hair, skin, and clothing so you can make adjustments to just those areas.

Digital noise is especially common in dark scenes or at high ISO values, but tools for reducing noise tend to soften photos. Lightroom uses AI processing to compensate for noise patterns and generate cleaner results.

Open the Detail section of Edit tools and click Denoise, then adjust the Amount slider to get just the right level of repair. (Tip: Click and hold the eye icon next to Detail to show the original image for comparison.)

Generative AI tools can produce results so realistic it can be difficult to tell if an image is genuine. Even if a tool is designed specifically for repair, the process adds pixels that did not exist in the original image.

Adobe’s solution is Content Credentials, a technology that adds identifying metadata to images edited with generative AI tools. (Several other companies have signed on to implement the technology in their own apps.) When exporting an image in Lightroom, simply check the Apply Content Credentials box to include this metadata; when the file is opened in any app that supports the feature, including Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, you’ll see detailed information about the image’s contents.