The much-hyped «Magic Eraser» for easily erasing unwanted objects (objects, people) in photos will not remain the prerogative of Google and Samsung smartphones — soon a similar AI tool called Generative Erase will be available to Windows computer owners. Microsoft has just announced Generative erase — a new AI feature that will provide the same capabilities in Photos, the standard Windows photo editor.
The GIFs below — show clear examples of the function’s capabilities: the first one makes a dog leash disappear with a light wave of the magic tool, and the second one quickly removes unnecessary people from the frame.
Yes, these are rather primitive tricks compared to the capabilities of leading generative models, such as OpenAI Sora. Still, it’s a really useful photo editing tool, and now more people will be able to try it without buying a new Pixel or Galaxy, which is a plus. Moreover, Microsoft is not only introducing this feature in Windows 11, but has also brought all the AI photo editing features to Windows 10, as well as to Windows 11 for ARM64 devices. Among other things, this includes the background removal function. So leave Photoshop for more complex processing.
The new tools are already available to Windows Insiders — the update is already being rolled out to all testers, including Windows 10 in the Release Preview channel. At the same time, Microsoft notes that the version of the Photos app must be 2024.11020.21001.0 or higher. The update should be available soon in current Windows 10/11 builds.
Microsoft does not specify whether AI-edited photos will have appropriate metadata or watermarks to distinguish them from unedited ones. On the other hand, there are already enough AI tools that allow you to easily remove these watermarks if you wish.