How to Use Apple’s Clean Up Tool to Remove Unwanted People and Things From Your Photos

We’ve all had that one perfect photo ruined by a stray tourist, a messy background, or a random photobomber. In the past, fixing these shots required a subscription to complex editing software or a steady hand with a manual cloning tool. Now, the process of deleting unwanted distractions is as simple as a quick tap, allowing you to clean up your image library without needing a degree in digital design.

Clean Up analyzes an image, suggests items you’d likely want removed, such as people or vehicles in the background, and then fills in the deleted area. Sometimes the fix is invisible to most viewers — and sometimes the results are laughably poor. After running many types of photos through the tool, I’ve come up with a few general guidelines to help you get the best cleaned-up images.

Two photos of a brick building along an uphill street. In the first, a series of vertical traffic posts are distracting. In the second, the posts have been removed.

The Clean Up tool can remove distractions.

Jeff Carlson/CNET

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