How to use the AI Clean Up tool in iOS 27 to remove unwanted objects in iPhone Photos

Clean Up has been a handy tool for removing unwanted elements from photos since iOS 18, but iOS 27 upgrades it even further. Apple is adding a bunch of new AI features in iOS 27, with one of the most essential apps, Photos, getting some cool AI upgrades too. There's one feature in particular that's getting much better with iOS 27: Clean Up. This tool has been around since iOS 18 redesigned the Photos app, though it's always lagged far behind its competitors. But thanks to Apple's new AI models, Clean Up is now much better at removing objects from your photos.

Before you can use the upgraded Clean Up, your iPhone needs iOS 27. If you've already installed the update, the next step is to enable Apple Intelligence if it's not already. That means you need an iPhone 15 Pro or later. If you have an older iPhone, you won't be able to take advantage of this feature.

Using Clean Up

If you've used Clean Up before, you'll know where to find it in iOS 27. The difference is that it now has some extra controls. To start, choose a photo you want to adjust in the Photos app and tap the Edit button at the bottom. Select Tools and choose Clean Up. You'll see an Auto button at the top, which lets you change the processing type. Leave this set to Auto to have your phone choose between the other two modes depending on how complex the image is.

Processing modes

• Fast retouches your photos with a smaller AI model. It gets the job done much faster, but it's not ideal for more complex retouching. Say you have a photo of a landscape and you want to remove a trash can in the background. Or maybe you need to hide the wiring on the street lights. These are the kinds of edits that the Quick model is most likely to handle well.
• High Quality is for more complex edits. When there are a bunch of people behind you ruining your selfie, that's where the High Quality option comes in. More advanced AI models can better understand the context of an image. But this improved processing comes at the cost of taking longer and using more battery.

Clean Up often tries to recognize unknown objects that you'll want to remove from your photo. This doesn't always work as it should, so it's more accurate to circle what you want to remove.

Extending and Reframing

For other cases where a photo didn't come out like you intended, iOS 27 introduces two extra photo-editing features: Extend and Reframe.

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