Whats New Photoshop April 2026

On the heels of my what's new in Lightroom video from last week, uh Adobe has also added some new Photoshop features recently. So, uh we're going to

features recently. So, uh we're going to take a look at those inside of this video. I do most of my videos for

video. I do most of my videos for photographers, so I'd say from a photography perspective. There's a

photography perspective. There's a couple of features in there that I think uh can be useful for you, but there's also some Photoshop uh usability features that you'll probably want to know about. Also, don't forget that if

know about. Also, don't forget that if you're going to update Photoshop, you're going to go to your Adobe uh Creative Cloud app that's on your computer. uh

you can look at your updates that are available and update from there. And of

course, Adobee is always the place to go if you have questions or problems updating the software. Let's jump in.

Now, the first feature I I think is actually the biggest and it's probably going to be the most impactful for you as a photographer. Again, keep in mind I pretty much only do my videos for photographers. So, um I can't really

photographers. So, um I can't really talk about how these would impact other people, but uh it's it's essentially there's been fine distractions inside of the remove tool. So, if you come over here, you open up a photo, you go to the

remove tool. Okay? And distractions is

remove tool. Okay? And distractions is primarily the reason a photographer is going to go over into Photoshop at this point in time. Okay? Replacing a sky, replacing a background, adding text, and

distractions is is probably one of the biggest ones um that a photographer would go over here. This find

distractions area has been here. And

we've been able to detect autodetect people and autodetect wires and cables for a long time, but now there's general distractions. So, when you click on it

distractions. So, when you click on it and choose find, it's going to find exactly what it says there. It's

essentially just general distractions.

And what it'll do is once it finds them all, it'll color code them up at the top here and it'll put little check boxes next to them. So, you can turn you can turn the sections on and off to see what

it's distracting. And uh and then just

it's distracting. And uh and then just go ahead and and and select an area inside of there. When you're ready to go, if you want to turn any of them off, you can hit that little check box and they will go away. Uh, I'll switch to a photo with a lot of different

distractions in here. So, again, we'll go ahead here and click on find. And

this just shows you once it's done that there's a lot more to it than what you saw from some of the simple distractions in that last video here. So, you can select all, you can turn them off. I can

go in here and turn on, you know, urban elements. You can see it's found cranes

elements. You can see it's found cranes and things off in the distance there.

And then don't forget, you also have your brush. That's the the remove tool

your brush. That's the the remove tool brush. Right bracket key makes it

brush. Right bracket key makes it bigger. Left bracket key makes it

bigger. Left bracket key makes it smaller. option key on Mac, Alt key on

smaller. option key on Mac, Alt key on PC, send you into subtract mode where you can subtract an area that you didn't want it to remove. And when you're ready to go, you just hit that little check

box up in the top area and Photoshop will go to town and remove those distractions for you. Okay, moving on to the next one here. This is a feature that we've already seen inside of Camera

Raw a while ago. Now we have it inside the main Photoshop interface for uh all the non- raw photos. And I do find it tends to work a little bit better. And

that is reflection removal. So come up here to the edit menu and go down to reflection removal. Inside here you get

reflection removal. Inside here you get a quality uh setting there. Preview

standard best. If you're what I would suggest is try preview first. Um it's

going to be a lot faster. If you're semi happy with the way it looks, then go ahead and uh spend the time to go for the best version of it. But uh you can even create a separate reflection layer for it. So I'll click okay. it's going

for it. So I'll click okay. it's going

to go and attempt uh to remove any reflection in the photo here. And then

you'll see over in the layers panel. So,

it's givingven me a new layer with the reflection removed, which is marginally okay. Uh it shows you the reflection

okay. Uh it shows you the reflection layer that it's added below that. So,

you can see what it's attempting to go in there and do it. And again, it it tends to work a little bit better inside the main Photoshop interface. And the

best quality works a little bit better, too. But it does take a little bit

too. But it does take a little bit longer to do it. So, I'll usually try uh that first. So, if you've got reflection

that first. So, if you've got reflection photos, which I I have to search over and over again for a long time to try to find reflection photos. I just found that I'm not somebody that takes them, but if you have them, um that might be

something you want to give a shot and see if it'll help out. Now, moving on to some AI stuff. Uh so, let's go into this photo here. I'm going to make a

photo here. I'm going to make a selection over in the sky. Once we do that, that's going to open up our uh contextual taskbar. And if you don't

contextual taskbar. And if you don't ever see that, just go to the window menu. Go down here to contextual

menu. Go down here to contextual taskbar. Little bit of a facelift. So

taskbar. Little bit of a facelift. So

we've got generative fill. So I want to say let's fill it with flying birds.

Okay. Couple of things that have changed is we can choose the model inside of here. So there are some new models.

here. So there are some new models.

There is Firefly uh five firefly. Try

saying that five times fast. But there's

Firefly 5 inside of there. So that is a uh that is a new model that's going to work a little bit better. also preserve

your details a little bit better. And

then don't forget there are some of your partner models um inside of here just as a a little decoder ring for you as we all start to get used to this generative

world and especially inside the Adobe uh ecosystem. That crown is typically your

ecosystem. That crown is typically your cue that you're about to get charged for something. So uh keep that in mind. That

something. So uh keep that in mind. That

is uh you're about to pull you're about to pull the generative credit slot machine. When you see this crown on

machine. When you see this crown on something, that means it's typically a model you're going to get charged for.

Okay, so I'll close out of there and I'll do I'll leave it set to what it is.

And I'll go ahead and click on generate.

Let's see. Let's just see what kind of flying birds it decides to put in the photo. It's always fun. Sometimes it

photo. It's always fun. Sometimes it

does better than I think and sometimes it does far worse than I think it's going to do. But uh it is also good to know that the uh depending on what model you use use, you do get a little bit

more detail. That's not good. That's not

more detail. That's not good. That's not

good. And that's not good. Let's get rid of that layer and make it go away really fast. Um, next up here, I'll make

fast. Um, next up here, I'll make another selection. Click on generative

another selection. Click on generative fill. And just another icon you're going

fill. And just another icon you're going to want to be aware of is this other one. This little kind of rectangle with

one. This little kind of rectangle with stars inside of it. That's generally the place that you can go to inside of Adobe to find out more about your generative

credits. So, uh, and I'm I'm a big

credits. So, uh, and I'm I'm a big proponent of this. So, it seems silly that I'm even talking about this little icon, but I believe really firmly like at all times, and I've said it before,

Adobe, if you're going to turn Photoshop into an online marketplace, you better very, very quickly and easily let us know how many credits we have. And so,

they're bringing that more to the forefront. So, I'm happy that that's

forefront. So, I'm happy that that's there. And you'll also find it in the

there. And you'll also find it in the top right corner of Photoshop as well.

So, if you're curious about how many credits you have and what this whole credit system is, uh, that's an icon that you can click to find out. Uh,

something else that you're going to want to find out about is my art of masking course. Um, I I say that jokingly, but

course. Um, I I say that jokingly, but seriously, this is quickly becoming one of my most popular courses. I get

messages every day on how how useful and how much this has really made people's workflows simpler. uh masking masking

workflows simpler. uh masking masking and selections honestly from a photography standpoint should be done inside of either versions of the Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. We have

the best most powerful and fastest masking tools there. So if you're going to adjust tone, color, contrast, exposure, this is the place you're going to do it. So you can get really creative with your photos. Whether it's enhancing

light, drawing attention to the subjects in the photo, dodging and burning, taking attention away, we have so many more tools that we can do with it now.

Um, and it essentially creates a very modern workflow that keeps all of our editing inside of our main raw editor.

So, we have a lot a lot fewer reasons to to ever jump over into Photoshop and make things uh more complicated. So, the

course is on sale, very small and very easy to get through. Each lesson is broken up into five seven minute chunks.

So you don't have to spend a lot of time to to actually make a meaningful change.

So hope you'll swing by and check it out. Uh it's over on the website and and

out. Uh it's over on the website and and trust me this is this is a step in in what's changed in our modern day workflow and I think it'll really help out. Next up we have a type related

out. Next up we have a type related feature which you know even if you're not a designer a pretty popular reason to go to Photoshop is to add text to a photo. So, I I actually kind of like the

photo. So, I I actually kind of like the feature. Uh, and it's been in beta in in

feature. Uh, and it's been in beta in in one form or another for a while here, but you can add a uh you can add a type layer here. So, I just put Matt Klcowski

layer here. So, I just put Matt Klcowski photography. Your contextual taskbar

photography. Your contextual taskbar will pop up and inside there uh there's a little icon where you can go into dynamic text. And you've got a few

dynamic text. And you've got a few different options inside here. So, we

can make it into a circle, which is again kind of cool. Uh we can do an arch up, we can do an arch down, and then there's also this uh this stacked version of it, which again can be pretty cool and save you a lot of time. So if

you do add type to your photo, uh I I of all the features that are not necessarily photography related, uh that's one that I like quite a bit here.

Uh another one here is layer cleanup. So

I've got this collage image that I had created with a whole bunch of layers in it. So you can see it's got a lot of

it. So you can see it's got a lot of layers inside of there. Um we can go in here. There's a little broom icon at the

here. There's a little broom icon at the bottom right hand corner of your layers panel. So, if you click on that, it

panel. So, if you click on that, it opens up layer cleanup. Inside there,

you can delete empty layers and you can also rename layers. And then hit apply.

And it'll go through there. It'll get

rid of any empty layers that you have.

And then it'll also uh go in there and try to name your layers based on what's in the photo. So, you can see person in red shirt, person holding ball, person holding ball, copy, uh texture, person

named Alex, all these different things.

So, it's going to try to attempt to uh to to name your layers and make it a little bit easier if you do have a large layer document to keep track of it.

Going on from there, we have a uh an interesting one that I don't know if photographers are going to use that much. I'm going to do select subject

much. I'm going to do select subject here. And then let's just go and uh

here. And then let's just go and uh let's go and put this up onto its own layer. So, I'm going to go to layer. I'm

layer. So, I'm going to go to layer. I'm

going to go new layer, new via cut. And

so if you look at what we have here, I have this eagle floating on top of the uh this eagle floating on top of the sky here. So what we're able to do is rotate

here. So what we're able to do is rotate this. And we do that by going up here to

this. And we do that by going up here to the edit menu. And then you go down here to rotate object. And it's got to do some thinking to prepare this image to

be rotatable. Uh once it does that, it

be rotatable. Uh once it does that, it is a low resolution preview. So, uh, you can see here it doesn't it doesn't look really good at this point, but, uh, you can rotate that around, change the

angles, do all these different things with it. So, it's, you know, I kind of

with it. So, it's, you know, I kind of joke at it. I'm I'm for my type of photography, it's not something I could use. It's I I'll click done. It'll

use. It's I I'll click done. It'll

generate a higher resolution version of the eagle, which will look like an eagle, but it's going to look like an AI generated eagle because it's it's generating the top of the eagle. Like,

this wasn't part of the photo. So AI has to step in and figure out what the top of an eagle is going to look like. So

again, for my style of photography, it's it's probably not something that I'm going to use. But if you ever do want a more complete tutorial, you can go up here to the help menu, go down there to what's new, and it's going to open up a

little thing over here on the right hand side. And there's one here, change views

side. And there's one here, change views with rotate object. Not only does it give you a little mini tutorial, it actually opens up a photo that you can do it on and you can get a feel for for what it's going to do for uh for this

type of photo inside here. So, as I said, I don't think it's going to work for all types of photography, but if it's something you're going to use, you might want to dig deeper into it. Last

thing is going to be the actions panel.

Go to the window menu, open up actions.

Actions panel is newly redesigned, so a lot of this has been in beta before, so you'll see. Let's go to a photo so we

you'll see. Let's go to a photo so we can actually get a better feel for what it's doing here. But you can hover over an action and it gives you a little preview of what it's going to look like.

You got to give it a couple seconds depending upon how complex the action is inside of there. But you'll see uh there's also subject and background

actions. And then there's also some

actions. And then there's also some creative effects inside of here too. So

uh as you hover over you can see what's going on there. You can also see that there's some guides and uh different actions inside of there. There are some resize actions for Instagram and

Facebook and Twitter. And then there's also some export actions that come along with it. And of course, you still have

with it. And of course, you still have your own actions under that tab there.

So, if you do have your own actions, you can go into there and you can still use them the same way that you always did.

So, hopefully that gives you a quick update on what's new inside of Photoshop. Also, I mentioned in the

Photoshop. Also, I mentioned in the beginning that Adobe did some updates to Lightroom as well. So, if you want to see what those are, I've got a video here that you can go watch next.