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Photos AI in appleOS 27

16 June 2026 at 20:34

With Spatial Reframing, users can improve the composition of a photo after it’s been taken. Spatial Reframing builds on Apple’s deep understanding of spatial models thanks to Apple Vision Pro, so users can touch and drag a photo and preview in real time how the perspective shifts — as if they’d repositioned the camera in the original scene. Using powerful image models, Spatial Reframing will only generate new content where the perspective has been shifted, ensuring the reframed photo stays consistent with the original scene.

Users can also expand images with the Extend tool to give their subjects more breathing room. For example, they can straighten a crooked horizon without cropping out anything important, or adjust the aspect ratio, and Extend will fill in the missing pieces. Additionally, the popular Clean Up tool gets a major upgrade, so users can remove distractions with better quality and more realistic infill, even when the scene is complex.

These seem like useful features. I think it’s fine for Apple to offer them, but they do seem somewhat at odds with its previous preening about how they believe in the sanctity of photos that actually happened.

Kuba Suder:

“Reframing photos with AI” - I don’t like this at all 👎

Kind of the crosses the line to cheating about reality too much for me… it’s one thing to lighten or darken or colorize pixels, but another thing to reposition them against each other.

Louie Mantia:

“Deep respect for photography” right after a demo on generating images bc they do not respect art.

Jeff Carlson (Mastodon):

Generative AI is a technology that photographers are distancing themselves from (or should be), thanks to all the AI slop being produced everywhere. And yes, that includes creations from Apple’s Image Playground app, the image generator that the company also showed off during the WWDC keynote.

But generative AI doesn’t need to mean full images created from text prompts. When applied to selective areas, like erasing a piece of trash next to a subject’s feet, generative AI can do some of the menial work of replacing pixels that photographers would otherwise spend time retouching in an app like Photoshop. Google’s Pixel phones include a similar Magic Eraser tool.

Spatial Reframing is a great example of how the technology can be used to enhance real photos you capture.

Brian MacDuff:

I can personally confirm that Apple’s Photos “Clean Up” feature is DRASTICALLY improved in iOS 27. 😳

John Siracusa:

This is a bit hyperbolic and unkind, so I hope you can forgive me for venting. And, hey, who knows? Maybe the fancy new AI-powered reframing feature will actually get broad use. (But I doubt it…)