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Testing ai Remove power lines in Photoshop, how good is it?

Colin Smith

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How good is the Photoshop Auto Remove Wires tool?

Hi everyone!

Last week we looked at the new auto remove people and auto remove power lines in Photoshop. Currently in Photoshop beta, see how to get the Photoshop BETA here. 

I had a few comments saying the wire removal was too easy, because it had a simple background.

This week, we try the remove tool on a number of challenging images, and I really try to break it. Let’s see how well it does, shall we? We go through each image in the video, let’s see what the challenge is on each image.

This is a a clear sky, simple background, but there are a lot of wires.

This appears simple. But, I wonder how it will manage the contrails in the sky. Will it think they are wires too?

More complex wires

The downed wires have a difficult background with the trees

This night shot has mixed low light and low contrast lighting, as well as haze and flares.

Maybe the ai isn’t trained as well on an aerial view.

Then, lastly, we will unleash the Kraken! Can it fix this impossible image?

Check out the video and see how well Photoshop can remove these power lines using the new ai wire Remove tool.

People asked about a second pass, so I tried that too and made a 1 min video here

Good to see you here.

Colin


PS Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media for more tips.. (I've been posting some fun Instagram and Facebook Stories lately)
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38 thoughts on “Testing ai Remove power lines in Photoshop, how good is it?

  1. Bill Junk
    September 25, 2024 at 2:32 pm

    After your previous tutorial I tried the People and Wires and Cables remove feature on an image that had people walking along a trail with a safety cable next to the trail as the trail circled a waterfall. The safety cable was suspended by small metal posts about every 10 feet. The remove People feature did quite well although I think the resolution of the replacement was not quite as good as that in the surrounding areas. Next I tried the remove Wires and Cables feature. It removed about 75 % of the safety cable, generally the portion in the middle of the image and left the cable supports in place. It also left a portion of the safety cable on the left and right extremes of the image. I tried it again from scratch and the performance was much worse. I can’t say that I did anything different on the second try. All in all I do find the tool to be useful because it can accomplish the removal of distracting elements in a just a few steps that would take a lot of tedious steps to do with non-AI tools.

  2. Ed Robidoux
    September 25, 2024 at 3:40 pm

    Wow, thanks for the demo. Great challenge.

  3. Jim Taylor
    September 25, 2024 at 4:25 pm

    I tried if on a chain link fence shot but it only took out a few of the wires. Not good results.
    I liked the capability of electrical wires and people. I guess it will be in next version of Photoshop.
    Thanks for your tutorials!

    1. Colin Smith
      December 4, 2024 at 5:48 pm

      Not designed for chain link. I hope they add an option for that someday though

  4. Sharon Saltzman
    September 25, 2024 at 5:39 pm

    In the “impossible image” after you applied the removal tool, could you then merge the layers and try again with a less complex image?

  5. Searlaid
    September 25, 2024 at 6:23 pm

    Luminar Neo has been doing it for ages, and does not require preliminary steps. Just select “remove power lines.”

  6. Doug-Schafer
    September 25, 2024 at 7:17 pm

    What happens if you do it again (a second time) on the already cleaned image. Like last one; stamp a new layer and try again…better?

  7. Geo G
    September 25, 2024 at 8:45 pm

    Surprising results. Fun episode.
    And we think you should continue with that exciting new voice and those cool threads.
    Sincerely
    Pat Sajak
    Steve Harvey
    Drew Carey

  8. Peter Safe
    September 25, 2024 at 9:12 pm

    Wow, that is brilliant. What a time saver.

  9. Guido
    September 26, 2024 at 2:58 am

    There are so many fantastic lessons in the café.
    This one sends me revisiting a dew pictures of mine.
    So well explained.

  10. Jim A Walters
    September 26, 2024 at 7:38 am

    After you did the first pass on the last image if you saved and did the process again it may remove more wires.

    1. Colin Smith
      December 4, 2024 at 5:47 pm

      I tried it and made a YouTube short

  11. Martina
    September 26, 2024 at 9:25 am

    Hi Colin, it works quite well but if you use levels after removing the wires, they appear again. Any changes to brightness needs to be done first.
    Like your videos a lot.

  12. Don Sutherland
    September 26, 2024 at 9:44 am

    Thanks for the demo as always – but what are the poles doing there without any wires?
    I was a photojournalist during the film era (Kodachrome), You can now create so many
    “dishonest,” photos.

    1. Colin Smith
      December 4, 2024 at 5:47 pm

      It purposely does not remove the posts, you can remove them if you want. As you know, these features are not for use with photojournalism, in fact, most of Photoshop isn’t for that case.

  13. Craig Oakley
    September 26, 2024 at 3:23 pm

    Well, that was really fun, and informative. Thanks for doing that.

  14. Don Wright
    September 26, 2024 at 3:30 pm

    My initial results were not as good as yours. I took a sunset picture that included several wires in it. The one that against the sky was removed perfectly, however the ones that were against the dark trees were horrible. The result I got back was a smear where the lines were, and some of the lines were not removed at all. I did a much better job doing it manually.

  15. Sam Bean
    September 27, 2024 at 6:50 am

    Been interesting to see the “kraken” with a second pass to see if it would get the rest once a lot of the wires (distractions) were out.

  16. Steven
    September 27, 2024 at 11:23 am

    Well done, and thanks for the intro! Question about that last image, and what happens if you run the tool on the repaired version?

  17. Ib
    September 27, 2024 at 12:32 pm

    Excellent and the fact one doesn’t have to remove each line by itself is amazing.

  18. September 27, 2024 at 12:33 pm

    Excellent and the fact one doesn’t have to remove each line by itself is amazing. Great Demo-Thank you

  19. September 27, 2024 at 1:18 pm

    Sorry Colin but I’m not impressed with the one with the two that had the downed lines and also the one with the lines along a road. It left a lot of glaring anomalies in place of the wires that you would have to fix manually. Might have just been faster to do those areas by hand in the first place.

  20. Diane
    September 27, 2024 at 8:42 pm

    Awesome!!! I gave myself several complicated samples before I saw this video, and even though some of them I ran through an extra time or two to pick up a few remaining lines, it was unbelievable how superb it worked! THANKS FOR SHARING!!!

  21. Rick Verbanec
    September 27, 2024 at 9:08 pm

    Can the last one be improved by merging the first two layers and doing it again?

    1. Colin Smith
      October 7, 2024 at 12:45 pm

      See the short I made, link in bottom of page

  22. September 29, 2024 at 5:26 pm

    Holy wire smokes!!!!!! I’ll have to try it on some of my images, the question I have is, where in the world was that last convoluted jumble of wires and what keeps them from shorting out?

    1. Colin Smith
      October 7, 2024 at 12:44 pm

      lol, Im glad they aren’t in my street

  23. Phil
    September 30, 2024 at 6:38 am

    I would like you to compare it to Luminar NEO.

    1. Colin Smith
      October 7, 2024 at 12:44 pm

      Good idea

  24. Howard Seyffer
    September 30, 2024 at 8:19 am

    What happens if you run “De Wire” a second time on your last image.

    1. Colin Smith
      October 7, 2024 at 12:41 pm

      I made a short of that result

  25. johnbgood
    October 2, 2024 at 10:43 am

    it thinks I’m a robot. I signed in looking for the how to video on power line removal in photoshop. will you help?

    1. Colin Smith
      October 7, 2024 at 12:39 pm

      Who thinks you are a robot?
      You can find the tuts on the website, you don’t need to sign in.

  26. Kevin Etherington
    October 2, 2024 at 12:23 pm

    Brilliant.

  27. Frank Burhenn
    October 3, 2024 at 2:13 pm

    Amazing! It will be a real time saver.

  28. George Felton
    October 7, 2024 at 2:43 pm

    I can’t find remove distractions on top of the page as your video shows. Opening the remove tool does not bring this up. I have the latest version of Photoshop, what am I missing?

  29. Laura
    November 16, 2024 at 4:29 am

    Fantastic Feature – takes all the laborious manual deletions away leaving little or nothing to do after its done its thing

  30. Jim Fergusson
    April 10, 2025 at 7:30 am

    Hi, thanks for all the great videos. Regarding chain link fences mentioned above, I have had success with the remove reflections feature in ACR. Works well where the fence is bright.

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