Heian Shrine

The Heian Shrine is one of the iconic sites of significance in Kyoto. To get an image without large crowds requires an early rise or a bit of luck. Or some editing, as in this image, which had a number of people removed using Lightroom’s Generative Remove tool to leave the focus on the single priest walking across the front of the image.

This image was created on my previous Micro Four-Thirds Panasonic Lumix G9 cameras, which was great for travel. I had been sitting on the image for sometime, learning the process of eliminating extraneous people. What my mind saw on the day was this lovely shrine with the priest walking in front. When technology caught up I was able to remove the distractions from my ‘photographic vision’.

My AI Thoughts

I’ve long worked with the principle that I don’t add elements to an image that weren’t there, but I do sometimes remove distracting elements, such as people, rubbish, etc. Adobe’s Generative Remove AI tool in Lightroom is the newest and simplest way of achieving this.

I actually have a bit of a hierarchical approach to removing distractions:

1. Remove distractions like rubbish by throwing them away before clicking the shutter.
2. Remove distractions pre-shutter through composing to not include.
3. Remove distractions in editing through cropping.
4. Remove distractions in editing using tools like Content Aware Fill, and now Generative Remove AI.

This is so far the only image I’ve posted where I have used generative remove AI in editing. It is the last choice in my hierarchy, but it remains a valid choice in situations like this one.

Image Data

• C: Panasonic Lumix DC-G9
• L: Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4
• E: Lightroom

View this image in my Photo Gallery, on Vero, Flickr or on Glass.