Apple Photos app gets three AI-powered editing tools including Spatial Reframing at WWDC

Apple's Photos app is getting new AI editing features

Apple announced at WWDC 2026 on Monday that its Photos app is getting a few new AI features that leverage Apple Intelligence. A new spatial "Reframe" feature will let users use AI to reframe images. For instance, if a user accidentally capture a sign above someone's head, if the photo would have been more symmetrical by stepping slightly to the right, or if eye contact with a subject was missed by a fraction of a second, the new reframing tool can help fix all of these issues. Users can touch and drag photos to adjust the perspective as if they had repositioned the camera in the original scene. Users can also preview the effect in real-time. As the photo is being adjusted, a blur will appear around the edges of the original image, which will be filled later by Apple's generative models. The feature only generates new content to fill in the gaps where the perspective has been affected to ensure that the reframe photo stays consistent with the original scene. The "Extend" tool expands images to give subjects more breathing room, or to straighten a crooked horizon without cropping out anything important. Users can pinch to zoom out, or adjust the crop to add more to the scene. The app's popular "Cleanup" tool is also getting an upgrade so users can remove distractions with better quality and more realistic infill with generative AI. The feature lets users tap, brush, or circle what they want to remove.

AI photo editing in iOS 27: revamped Clean Up and two new AI tools for iPhone Photos app

Apple today announced a significant upgrade to the editing features available in Apple Photos on iPhone, Mac and Vision Pro. Powered by new artificial intelligence models, Apple announced a significant improvement to Clean Up as well as new Extend and Reframe tools. These features will be available with iOS 27 and other software updates later this year. It seems that all of these image editing features are now powered by a combination of on-device and cloud models, rather than just on device. This means Clean Up has been upgraded to be powered by smarter AI models, so it can do object removal on much more complex scenes. Extend is a brand new tool that lets users generate content around the borders of an existing image. And Reframe lets users change a photo's angle or zoom out. Choose a new angle using multi-touch gestures, and then when you press Save, the phone sends the image to a cloud server for processing.

Apple's AI-powered Spatial Reframing tool just stole the show at WWDC

There will be no more stressing about getting the perfect composition with this AI and photo editing go together like peanut butter and jelly, and Apple's just announced some impressive-sounding editing features at WWDC 2026. But of the three, it's clear that the new Reframe tool absolutely steals the show. Reframe is a feature that does exactly what it sounds like. The idea is that you can take an existing photo and shift the perspective to create something (almost) totally new. It sounds like the kind of thing Apple would restrict to spatial photos, which are only visible on the Vision Pro headset, but that's not the case. Referred to as Spatial Reframing, Apple says that this feature can be applied to all pictures Apple Photos has access to -- even ones taken by a totally different camera. The AI scans the photo in question, and once done, you can pull your finger across the screen to change the perspective. Apple Photos lets you see a preview of the final image in real time, and once you've decided on the new perspective, generative AI will shift things around and fill in the blanks. This effectively means that you don't necessarily need to stress about getting the right photo composition before you actually hit the shutter button. You can always come back to it later and shift things around to make them more visually appealing. Which is pretty incredible, especially when you remember that Apple Photos doesn't have any additional spatial data to work with. In addition to Reframe, Apple is adding a new "Extend" feature, which is kinda like a reverse crop. It can expand the image beyond its original framing and generate new details that you may not have been able to get into shot the first time around. Similarly, Clean Up, which arrived as part of iOS 18, is getting a much-needed upgrade that improves performance and offers better results whenever you remove an object. We hope to test these features in the near future to see just how well they work.

Apple to Bring AI Reframing and Editing Tools to Photos App

Apple today announced new AI-powered photo editing tools coming to the Photos app as part of Apple Intelligence, including an upgraded Cleanup tool, a new Extend tool, and a new Spatial Reframing feature. Spatial Reframing allows users to reposition the virtual camera angle of a photo after it has already been taken. By touching and dragging, users can adjust the framing and perspective of a shot, with Apple Intelligence generating new content only to fill in the gaps created by the shift in angle. It only generates new content to fill in the gaps where the perspective has shifted, ensuring the reframed photo stays consistent with the original scene. The Cleanup tool is also receiving what Apple calls a "big upgrade," with improved ability to remove distractions from images and more realistic infill "even when the scene is complex." A new Extend tool rounds out the trio, letting users add more background space to a photo or adjust its aspect ratio. Apple said the new tools help photographers "enhance their images in ways that respect the original moment." All three features are processed using Apple's Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, meaning the edits are handled in the cloud while Apple says user data remains protected. The new tools will work on older photos as well as images taken with non-Apple cameras.

Apple's Photos App is Getting Three New AI-Powered Editing Tools

Apple is enhancing the photo editing tools available in the Photos App with the next version of iOS. Three new features are coming: enhanced Cleanup, Extend, and Reframe. In its WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) keynote, Apple showcased enhanced editing tools that are coming to the Photos app. Firstly, Cleanup -- the only one of the three highlighted tools that has a form available in the Photos app today -- is getting more powerful, with the ability to remove more objects from a scene more naturally. Apple showcased one example where multiple people are removed from an image without the background looking fake. While that is only new in the sense that it is more powerful, the next two features are truly new to the app. Firstly, Extend is a feature coming to Photos that is best described as Apple's take on Adobe's Generative Expand feature, which allows users to add digitally "pull back" from a photo and fill in that missing information using generative AI. Apple showcased an example where a portrait might be too tightly framed, so an editor can create a wider field of view using the new feature. While preparing the tool, the app will show a blurred area that shows how much is being made by AI before using it. The second feature combines both generative AI and Apple's spatial maps cleverly into one feature. Spatial Reframing, or Reframe as it is called in the app, takes a photo's spatial data and allows a user to isolate and move subjects around in that spatially generated digital space. Once a new frame is chosen, that same blurred area shown in the Extend feature will show what parts of the new frame need to be generated with AI. Once done, the final image is a new perspective of an existing scene that is only made possible by using those two technologies. "The next generation of Apple Intelligence powers tremendous new features in apps across the system. In Photos, Spatial Reframing enables users to improve the composition of a photo after it's been taken," Apple says. These features will all arrive later this year with iOS 27.

Apple Spatial Reframing is the most unique AI tool from WWDC

It was a big day for Apple Intelligence, Apple's distinctly branded suite of AI tools, at the company's annual WWDC event for developers. And of all the AI tools seen at WWDC 2026, the most interesting might have been a new photography tool called Spatial Reframing. A revamped Siri, powered by AI and now known as Siri AI, was definitely the spotlight of the show. However, most of what Apple's new AI assistant can do has been seen before on other devices. Because Apple Intelligence and Siri AI will be powered by Google Gemini, many of the new tools are already available on Android devices or in the Gemini app. To be fair, Apple has a habit of rolling out features that have already been done by competitors, even if Apple sometimes does them better. Even so, Apple did show off a unique AI feature that has people buzzing. The real showstopper of WWDC was Spatial Reframing. What is Spatial Reframing in Apple Intelligence? While discussing updates to the Camera app, Apple showcased a new spatial computing experience that allows users to change the angle, perspective, or zoom on photos. Spatial Reframing grew out of Apple's spatial computing and visual intelligence technology on visionOS, the operating system for its Apple Vision Pro headset. The reframing feature is powered by on-device spatial models and Apple's Private Cloud Compute. With Spatial Reframing, Apple Intelligence scans a photo, and then the user can drag their finger to change the angle or perspective and pinch to zoom in and out. Spatial Reframing keeps as much of the original photo intact as possible, showing the user, via a blurring effect, exactly where it will utilize AI to fill in the gaps that will be needed for the new photo. When a user finds that perfect angle, they just need to tap on the "Reframe" button and Spatial Reframing will make the AI-powered updates to the photo. There are similar AI features out there, but Spatial Reframing is unique in how it shows the user in real-time as they're using the touchscreen how their changes affect the original photo. In addition, Spatial Reframing can be used on any picture, not just ones taken by the iPhone camera. Spatial Reframing is just one of the new AI photo editing tools coming to Apple's Camera and Photos apps. Users will also have new tools for editing, extending, and cleaning up photos. Spatial Reframing will be available in the fall when iOS 27 is released to the public. For more WWDC 2026 news, follow our live blog to see all of the latest announcements and surprises from the annual Apple event.

Apple's new AI photo tool can literally change where the camera was standing

Spatial Reframing uses Apple Intelligence to reposition shots after they've already been taken This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage Updated less than 1 minute ago We've all taken a photo that would've been perfect if only the camera had been positioned a little differently, right? Well, Apple now wants to fix that with Spatial Reframing, a new Apple Intelligence feature that can virtually reposition the camera after the shot is taken while using AI to naturally fill in the missing parts of the scene. Spatial Reframing uses AI to virtually move the camera after the shot According to Apple, Spatial Reframing combines on-device spatial models, built using technology developed for Apple Vision Pro, with its image generation models running on Private Cloud Compute. Users can simply drag around a photo during editing, and the perspective shifts as though the camera itself had been moved while capturing the original scene. Apple says only the newly exposed portions of the image are generated by AI, while the original content remains untouched. The company demonstrated the feature by repositioning a family photo, moving the framing lower to create a more balanced composition while naturally filling in the missing background around the edges. Alongside Spatial Reframing, Apple also announced an upgraded Extend tool that can expand images to create more breathing room or straighten horizons without aggressively cropping the original shot. This might be the closest thing to a photographic time machine yet Unlike traditional AI photo editing that simply adds or removes objects, Spatial Reframing tries to recreate a shot you never actually took. That's a far more ambitious idea, because it asks AI to understand the three-dimensional layout of a scene before generating only the missing pieces needed to support a new perspective. If it works as well in the real world as it did on stage, this could easily become one of the most useful Apple Intelligence features announced so far. After all, everyone has taken a badly framed photo at some point, and Apple is essentially promising a second chance without asking anyone to go back in time.

Apple's New AI Photos Tool Lets You 'Go Back in Time' to Retake a Picture

At the tech giant's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicked off Monday, Apple announced a series of AI-powered updates to apps. In Apple's Photos app, that means three new editing capabilities. First, Alok Deshpande, Apple director of camera and photos software engineering, announced that the "Clean Up" tool will be able to remove bigger distractions from photos, and fill the empty space with more realistic infill. Another new tool, called "Extend," allows Apple users to extend photos to fit a larger aspect ratio, give their subjects "more breathing room" or straighten a crooked horizon without tight or limiting crops, Deshpande said. But perhaps the most exciting tool is called "spatial reframing." The tool allows users to digitally go back in time and correct an imperfect photo.