iOS 18.1 beta 3 adds new ‘Clean Up’ feature to the Photos app

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With the launch of iOS 18.1 beta 3 for developers today, Apple Intelligence is adding a new Clean Up feature to the Photos. This feature, as announced at WWDC, can identify and remove distracting options in the background of a photo.

The new Clean Up feature is accessible in the Photos app when editing a photo. It’s denoted by a new eraser-style icon in the bottom toolbar. The feature offers smart detection and uses multiple machine learning models to detect distractions, find the edges of an unwanted object, and then replace them. The feature can even identify an unwanted object’s shadow or reflection and remove it.

The Clean Up feature also knows where people are in the photo, so it can avoid accidentally removing or replacing part of a person.

Clean Up can intelligently identify distracting elements in a photo’s background, and the user can remove those distractions with a single tab. Users can also manually zoom in and use their finger as a retouch brush to remove distractions.

Finally, the feature works for any image in your Photos library, not just images shot on an iPhone.