How to use Clean Up in iOS 18.1 Photos to remove distractions

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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in iOS

Apple's new Clean Up tool is a great use of Apple Intelligence that can enhance your photos without excessive editing. Here's how it works.

The edit tray inside the Photo app with the new eraser icon for the Clean Up tool
The new Clean Up tool comes to the Photos app



Clean Up is part of Apple Intelligence as, unlike with some repair tools, it uses generative AI. The AI analyzes the photo to do its best to fill in or remove the selected area.

We've been testing it out the past week or so, and have found it to be one of the most useful Apple Intelligence features so far.

Make your photos better with Clean Up



To use the Clean Up tool, open the Photos app and select an image you want to edit. At the bottom, you'll see the new Clean Up tool icon shaped like an eraser.

The first time you launch the Clean Up tool it will need to download the AI model to your device. The Clean Up tool does everything on-device and doesn't send anything to the servers.

This keeps everything private and secure though there could be tradeoffs compared to cloud computing in terms of quality with complex scenes.

Three iPhone screenshots showing the ability of the Clean Up tool to remove a pool noodle sitting on the beach
Clean Up tool does a good job removing objects, and can be further refined afterwords



Once selected, it will automatically analyze your photo for errant objects that it believes could be removed to improve the photo. They will highlight in a swirl of bright colors so they're easy to see.

Tap any of those objects and the will quickly be removed. We tried this with cars, people, and any other objects so far.

Most of the time it did a great job. But, if we tried to remove too large of an object with a busy background it would get confused and muddled.



Apple's on-device processing is way better than Google's, but the cloud-based option is far more capable with the power of remote servers.

A screenshot of the Google Pixel 9 keynote where they've added a hot air balloon and a field of flowers to a photo
You can't create fake scenes with hot air balloons and fields of flowers with Apple's Clean Up AI tool



This also differs from Google's approach to "reimagining" images and adding to an image. Apple wants to retain the original intent of the photo an make it better, instead of creating fictitious images.

Clean Up tips and tricks



While Apple provides several suggestions for removal, you aren't limited to those. If you see something you want to remove, tap it and Photos will try to identify its edges.

Using a finger to circle another toy sitting on the beach to be removed by the Clean Up tool
Circle or tap objects to remove them with the Clean Up tool



It will flash in a colorful rainbow of light before being removed. Similarly, you can circle anything just by drawing your finger around it.

You can zoom in and out by pinching or pan around so you can be very granular and your removals. This is very helpful when trying to remove stuff like facial blemishes that are small and precise.

An iPhone screenshot showing the metadata of a photo that it was editing with Clean Up
To help identify AI editing, photos will be marked with appropriate metadata



After making any modifications with Clean Up, Apple will add this information to the metadata to help prevent misinformation on AI editing. It will read "Modified with Clean Up," similar to images generated with Image Playground.

A screenshot of a photo with a child and his face blurred
You can blur faces too with the Clean Up tool by circling them



Lastly, if you need to obfuscate someone's face, you can circle it. It will flash before pixelating it. Great for hiding strangers or someone's kids before sharing them online.

Available soon



Clean Up, as well as other Apple Intelligence features, will arrive as part of iOS 18.1, likely this October. It will follow the launch of iOS 18 with hundreds of other new features and changes.

A screenshot of the impending iOS 18.1 software update
Clean Up arrives with iOS 18.1 later this year



So far, Clean Up is support on any Apple Silicon Macs, M-series iPads, and the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.



Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    kelliekellie Posts: 61member
    Apple loves the idea of on device AI tools because it will force people to upgrade their phones or Macs if they want the AI tools to work. Google at least offers a higher quality cloud option.  I doubt Apple will ever offer a cloud service for photo manipulation even though the results are currently better. 
    edited September 3
  • Reply 2 of 9
    snookiesnookie Posts: 141member
    That’s nonsense and not why they do it at all. Stop with the conspiracy theories. Google focuses on cloud so they can steal and sell your data as they do with everything.  
    jibappleinsideruser
  • Reply 3 of 9
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,555member
    snookie said:
    That’s nonsense and not why they do it at all. Stop with the conspiracy theories. Google focuses on cloud so they can steal and sell your data as they do with everything.  
    Google's version of Apple's "Clean Up", Magic Eraser, is also done on device, even on your iPhone in most cases.  Same with voice typing, Translate, unblur, recorder, and Call Screen which can all run on-device with no internet/cloud connection.  ;) I guess that ruins your theory. 

    I'm not sure what Google service AppleInsider is using for comparison, but I'd guess that it's the option of sending a photo to Google's cloud-based processing for a particularly problematic image?

    Now as for Apple's Clean-up, I'm impressed by Apple's beta development of the feature. It's already pretty good. 
    edited September 3
  • Reply 4 of 9
    XedXed Posts: 2,796member
    kellie said:
    Apple loves the idea of on device AI tools because it will force people to upgrade their phones or Macs if they want the AI tools to work. Google at least offers a higher quality cloud option.  I doubt Apple will ever offer a cloud service for photo manipulation even though the results are currently better. 
    In the given example, Apple's on-device result are considerably better than that Google's on-server result.


  • Reply 5 of 9
    XedXed Posts: 2,796member
    gatorguy said:
    snookie said:
    That’s nonsense and not why they do it at all. Stop with the conspiracy theories. Google focuses on cloud so they can steal and sell your data as they do with everything.  
    Google's version of Apple's "Clean Up" is also done on device. ;) I guess that ruins your theory. 
    Being on cloud doesn't really matter as the app can still any and all data they deem necessary back to their servers once the device is connected. We've already seen many tests showing that being in Airplane mode doesn't mean you aren't being tracked.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    sbdudesbdude Posts: 283member
    kellie said:
    Apple loves the idea of on device AI tools because it will force people to upgrade their phones or Macs if they want the AI tools to work. Google at least offers a higher quality cloud option.  I doubt Apple will ever offer a cloud service for photo manipulation even though the results are currently better. 
    Because Google's cloud option is done out of the kindness of their hearts, and your images won't be used to train their AI models or be stolen for their own purposes, metadata and all.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,555member
    sbdude said:
    kellie said:
    Apple loves the idea of on device AI tools because it will force people to upgrade their phones or Macs if they want the AI tools to work. Google at least offers a higher quality cloud option.  I doubt Apple will ever offer a cloud service for photo manipulation even though the results are currently better. 
    Because Google's cloud option is done out of the kindness of their hearts, and your images won't be used to train their AI models or be stolen for their own purposes, metadata and all.
    Correct. They may use public data for training purposes, but not private stuff such as your photos. 
  • Reply 8 of 9
    grandact73grandact73 Posts: 53member
    Wow, Apple is only 13 years late. Snapseed (Google) from 2011 worked (and still works) great.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,229member
    kellie said:
    Apple loves the idea of on device AI tools because it will force people to upgrade their phones or Macs if they want the AI tools to work. Google at least offers a higher quality cloud option.  I doubt Apple will ever offer a cloud service for photo manipulation even though the results are currently better. 

    Baloney, the Google Pixel needs to phone home because the Tensor processor is weak. It’s five years behind Apple processors it’s just barely ahead and an 11 Pro iPhone processor. They have no choice but to phone home how’s that work with? No Internet connection is this being done over cellular? What is the cost? Note the Pixel even has a dodgy modem to boot.

    Googles solution also coincidentally helps with spying aspect no surprise that they want to see everything you do. One other thing that I’ve noticed recently Samsung and Google love the idea of taking the initial pictures and manipulating them into something far away from real. Apple is still trying to do a more professional pro res output what you see is what you get take the best unaltered picture you can first.
    edited September 3
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