How to Remove Reflections in Adobe Camera Raw

How to Remove Reflections in Adobe Camera Raw

Photograph through a window and you capture two scenes at once: what is behind the glass, and what is reflected off it. Until recently there was no way to separate them — the two images are physically superimposed in the file, and no amount of masking can pull them apart.

Reflection removal in Adobe Camera Raw does exactly that. It splits the two, and gives you a single slider to move between them. All the way one way shows only the reflection; all the way the other shows only what was behind the glass.

It is a technology preview, so it is switched off by default and has one significant limitation.

It Only Works on RAW Files

This is the constraint to know before anything else: the image must be RAW. A DNG, or your camera’s native format. JPEGs will not work.

The reason is straightforward — separating two superimposed scenes needs far more tonal information than an eight-bit JPEG retains. The data has to be there for the analysis to work at all.

Phone photographs are fine as long as they were captured as RAW. Most current phones support it; on iPhone that means ProRAW, and the shot in this tutorial was taken on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. If you photograph through windows with any regularity, it is worth turning RAW capture on.

Enable Technology Previews

The feature is hidden until you switch it on.

1. Open a RAW file so Adobe Camera Raw launches

   Drag it onto Photoshop, or open it from Bridge or Lightroom.

2. Go to Settings, then Technology Previews

   The gear icon in the Camera Raw window.

3. Tick the technology previews option

   This enables several AI features together — generative expand, denoise, and reflection removal.

4. Quit and reopen Photoshop

   Required. The features do not appear until you restart.

Apply It

Open your RAW file and go to the Remove tool. You will see a Reflection option. Tick it and click Apply.

Photoshop analyzes the image and separates the two scenes. Then you get one slider.

What the Slider Does

At one end you see only the reflection — whatever was behind you, isolated from the window’s contents. At the other end you see only what was behind the glass, with the reflection removed. Setting it to zero returns the original photograph with both.

Everything between is a blend, and that is where most images end up. A street photograph reflecting the photographer might be best at neither extreme — enough reflection removed to see into the shop, enough retained that the image still reads as being shot through glass.

Move the slider slowly and watch what the picture becomes. This is a creative decision rather than a correction.

Two Ways to Use It

Removing an Unwanted Reflection

The obvious case — a shop window, a museum case, a car interior — where you wanted the contents and got yourself and the street as well. Push the slider toward the contents and the reflection largely disappears.

Keeping the Reflection Instead

The other direction is more interesting. Isolating the reflection gives you a clean image of what was behind the camera, captured off the glass — something you could not have photographed directly. Shooting from inside a house toward a porch, one end of the slider gives you the room, the other gives you the garden.

One exposure, two usable photographs.

Expect It to Be Imperfect

It is a technology preview and it does not catch everything. Strong or sharply defined reflections may leave traces even at the extreme of the slider, particularly where the reflected content is high-contrast.

What it achieves is still remarkable for a single slider — and anything remaining can be handled conventionally afterwards. Click Open in Photoshop rather than Done, and clean up leftovers with the Remove Tool or Generative Fill.

Treat it as doing 90 percent of a job that was previously impossible, rather than as a perfect one-click fix.

Worth Shooting For

Knowing this exists changes how you shoot. Windows, glass cases, and car windscreens used to be situations to avoid or work around with a polarizer. Now they are situations to shoot in RAW and sort out later — and sometimes to shoot deliberately, because the reflection itself is now a separable image.

Summary

RAW only. Enable Technology Previews in Camera Raw settings and restart Photoshop. Open the RAW file, go to the Remove tool, tick Reflection, and click Apply. Then move the single slider between the reflection and the scene behind the glass, and stop wherever the photograph is best.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• File typeRAW or DNG only; phones can shoot RAW (the sample is from an iPhone 14 Pro Max)
• Open itDrag the RAW file into Photoshop; Camera Raw opens
• Turn it onCamera Raw Settings > Technology Previews > enable the AI features, then quit and reopen Photoshop
• Run itRemove tool > tick Reflections > Apply
• The sliderLeft shows only the reflection, 0 is the original, right shows what’s behind the glass
• FinishOpen in Photoshop, or Done

A technology preview at recording; results vary by photo.