Reflection removal finds nothing unless image has lossy compression

[SP0]

Lightroom Version Number

15.1.1

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

I have used reflection removal in the past and thought it was amazing. But now I have a number of images where to my eye the reflections are obvious, yet LR finds nothing -- when I move the reflections slider to 0, it is black.

Strangely if I export the image (originally HEIC from an iPhone Pro) as a JPEG and re-import, then:
- at 100% quality, it continues to find no reflections
- at 80% quality, it finds some parts of the reflections
- at 70% quality, if finds even more
- resized to 1200px across, at 100% quality, it finds no reflections
- resized to 1200lx across, at 70% quality, it finds many reflections.

Is this something wrong with my setup or am I expecting too much from the AI?

Here is my test example (taken in the Louvre-Lens Museum) which I thought should be quite suitable for reflection removal (this is a compressed version because of upload limits). It should be finding the person, the reflected artworks, and more. The 100% quality JPEG (in which LR finds no reflections) is here.

 

[UliP.]

Like you, I have noticed that the Reflection Removal Tool in LrC 14.x was much better than it is now in 15.x.
It hardly removes any reflections. And when the slider is set to 0, the image is black for me too.
I created a thread about this, which is now closed. The conclusion was that it must be a bug and should be reported to Adobe.
I will test your idea with exporting and re-importing later today and let you know how it goes.

Here is the link to my thread:

U

Thread 'Reflection Removal no longer working after latest update to LrC 15'

Dec 2, 2025

Hello everyone,
over the past few days, I've noticed that reflection removal no longer works properly in LrC 15.0.1. This is the case in both Windows 11 and macOS 15 Sequoia, regardless of the quality setting. Even downgrading to LrC 14.5 does not improve the situation. Apparently, even for older LrC versions (which support this feature), “something AI-related” is loaded in the background, which enables the feature. It seems that the current AI is also downloaded for older LrC versions.

Incidentally, the same problem also occurs in Photoshop! However, I am posting it here because LrC is...

• UliP.
• reflection removal
• Replies: 22
• Forum: Lightroom Classic (folder-based, subscription)

• 

 

[John R Ellis]

Note that Lightroom Queen wrote: "As with many tools in Lightroom, it works better with raw files than with rendered (e.g., JPEG, TIFF, HEIC)."

Though my experience with both the original version and the current version applied to raw files has been more miss than hit.

 

[clee01l]

Note that Lightroom Queen wrote: "As with many tools in Lightroom, it works better with raw files than with rendered (e.g., JPEG, TIFF, HEIC)."

Though my experience with both the original version and the current version applied to raw files has been more miss than hit.

My experience follows that of John. Rarely has an image the has reflections been repairs as well as the Adobe promotional advertisements. My best result actually came from a wrinkled print that was scanned to digitize.

 

[UliP.]

So, I have now the whole thing with my DNG from my Thread from April 2025 (mentioned above) tested. I have ex- and re-imported from the DNG, like SPO, correspondingly Jpgs with different compressions and sizes.
The results are the same as described by SPO, but still do not reach the results achieved in April 2025.
I will check what has become of my bug message.

 

[UliP.]

Here is the link to my Bug Report at the Adobe Forum:
https://community.adobe.com/questio...o-lrc-15-x-1548584?postid=1548584#post1548584