Remove Wires and Cables from Photos Instantly in Photoshop 2025

Download the PDF: Remove Wires and Cables from Photos

Written by Steve Patterson.

Photoshop’s Remove Tool quickly became the retouching tool of choice for removing unwanted elements from your image. And Photoshop 2025 makes the Remove Tool even more useful.

Not only can the Remove Tool now use generative AI, powered by Adobe Firefly, but it also includes a new feature called Find Distractions which is really two features in one.

In this tutorial, I show you how to use Find Distractions to instantly remove distracting wires and cables from your photos.

Check out the previous tutorial where I show you how to use Find Distractions to remove unwanted people from your photos without removing your main subject.

Which Photoshop version do I need?

The Remove Tool’s new Find Distractions and generative AI features are available in Photoshop 2025, released in October 2024.

Let’s get started!

Download this tutorial as a print-ready PDF!

Step 1: Open your image in Photoshop

Start by opening your image in the Photoshop.

With this landscape photo, we can clearly see the distracting hydro wires running along the top.

A photo with distracting wires.

Step 2: Create a new blank layer

To avoid making permanent changes to your image, add a new blank layer above it. We’ll do the retouching work on this new layer.

In the Layers panel, click the Add New Layer icon at the bottom.

Adding a new blank layer.

A new layer named Layer 1 appears above the image on the Background layer.

The new layer above the image.

Step 3: Select the Remove Tool

In the toolbar, select Photoshop’s Remove Tool.

By default, it’s hiding behind the Spot Healing Brush so you may need to click and hold on the Spot Healing Brush icon and then choose the Remove Tool from the list.

Selecting the Remove Tool.

Step 4: Turn on Sample all layers

In the Options Bar, make sure Sample all layers is checked. This enables us to work on the blank layer we added.

Ignore the Remove after each stroke option next to it because it doesn’t work with the Find Distractions feature.

Turning on Sample all layers.

Step 5: Turn on generative AI

Still in the Options Bar, set the Mode (new in Photoshop 2025) to Generative AI On. This tells the Remove Tool to use Adobe Firefly to generate new image detail rather than trying to source the detail from other parts of the image. You can also set the Mode to Auto which does a good job of knowing when to use generative AI and when it’s not needed.

Turning on generative AI for the Remove Tool.

Step 6: Click Find Distractions and choose Wires and cables

Again in the Options Bar, click the new Find distractions button. Then choose Wires and cables from the list. I covered the People option in the previous tutorial.

Notice above Wires and Cables that it says One-click removal. That’s because Photoshop is going to analyze the image, find any wires or cables and remove them as soon as you click the button.

Clicking Find distractions and choosing Wires and cables.

Since we’re using generative AI to remove the wires, Photoshop needs to connect to the Adobe Firefly servers over your internet connection. This can take several seconds and you’ll see a progress bar on the screen.

The progress bar while Firefly removes the wires.

When it’s done, the wires are instantly removed, with new AI-generated content in their place.

The wires are gone.

In the Layers panel, you can click the eyeball icon for Layer 1 to toggle the wires on and off and compare the results.

Toggle the layer on and off.

Step 7: Clean up any problem areas

In most cases, the Find Distractions option does a great job of removing the wires. But as with any automatic feature, even one powered by generative AI, you may notice an issue with the results.

With my image, there’s now an obvious repeating pattern in one spot where the wires were removed.

A problem area that needs to be fixed.

But no worries. I can use the Remove Tool to clean it up manually.

All I need to do is paint with the Remove Tool over that area.

Painting with the Remove Tool over the problem.

Since I have Remove after each stroke turned on in the Options Bar, and the Mode set to Generative AI on, Photoshop replaces the area with new Adobe Firefly-generated content as soon as I release my mouse button.

The Remove Tool was able to fix the problem.

And there we have it! That’s how to easily remove unwanted people from your photos using the Remove Tool’s new Find Distractions option in the latest Photoshop beta.

Related tutorials:

Don’t forget, all of my Photoshop tutorials are now available to download as PDFs!