Microsoft’s Paint and Photos apps are at the forefront of AI adoption. Microsoft has been improving the Photos app with essential features like Blur and minor edits for some time, and now it can erase objects with precision.
You must have multiple photos ruined by someone in the background and want to hide that. Other use cases can include hiding sensitive information from an image so it isn’t visible to the other person.
Photos app’s Generative Erase can remove the selected area in an image and even offers precise controls over the chosen location. Let’s explore the feature in detail.
Removing Objects with Generative Erase in Photos App
The Photos app is the default image viewer on Windows 11. So, double-click on any photo in the File Explorer to open it. Then click on the Edit button. A new window will launch with all the relevant editing options in the app.
Click on the Erase option. The first thing you must do is to adjust the brush size. It’ll help cover the area precisely. I kept it around 50 because I wanted to wipe a big area. There are also masking options, but you don’t need them for basic erase.
I tested it with a basic Windows 11 OOBE page image and selected the top text and button.
Since the tool is set to auto-apply, it quickly hid the text and the button as if nothing was there. Pretty neat?
I tried it with other screenshots of the OS, like this black background Settings app page. Here, I got mixed results.
When I erased the icon next to the Windows Update text, it left a blue spot and failed to hide the color difference completely. I repeatedly applied the erase effect on that area, but the result looked more or less the same.
However, when I erased the icon above the Cloud Storage text, it effectively blended the colors as if the icon was never there. So, you’ll have mixed results with different color backgrounds.
The last leg of the tests was a group photo I downloaded from Pexels. At first, I tried removing the person in the blue pants on the extreme left. After ten or so attempts, I ended with a distorted background look. Next, I tried removing the glass from the hand, and it took a few attempts to hide the glass.
Even after so much effort, the result wasn’t near perfect. It shows a cupped hand but with half-visible glass. Clearly, that wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for. It is the same for all the other image erase that I tried.
Verdict
I wouldn’t use Photos Generative Erase for complex images with multiple colors and objects intertwined with each other, like the person holding a glass. A Generative Fill option might work better to replace the glass with an open hand or something. But that is something only reserved for Copilot+ PCs at the moment.
Microsoft won’t add Generative Fill to Photos for free because it’s already charging for Image Creator in Paint and bundling it with a Microsoft 365 subscription. I believe these options will work better in combination. You’ll have to use Photoshop for picture-perfect erase that looks like the object was never there.
Still, it’s great to have a native erase option in Photos to hide details and remove objects from the images. Note that the Paint app has a similar Generative Erase option but with more granular control over the selection area.
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