Content-Aware Fill is an amazing tool, but Photoshop has an even more effective tool to get the job done: the Remove Tool. This tool allows us to simply draw over an area of our image and Photoshop will magically remove the object. Now, before you think 'that's what Content-Aware Fill does' - hang on. The two actually work in completely different ways.

While the Content-Aware Fill works by sampling the pixels surrounding your selection, the Remove Tool uses machine learning (which is a type of AI, or Artificial Intelligence) to analyze the image and determine how best to not only remove the object, but to also fill the area with something that makes sense for the image. While Content-Aware Fill works great on images with consistent backgrounds (backgrounds that are similar throughout the entire image), it doesn't work very well for complicated backgrounds, such as the cars in the junkyard. However, the Remove Tool is specifically designed to work with complex backgrounds, edges, and can even preserve the image's perspective.

We are going to use the Remove Tool on two different parts of the Colosseum image so we can get a good look at what it is capable of doing.

We are going to remove this entire building. Such a large, complicated object would be difficult to remove using the tools we have used so far, but watch how easy it is using the Remove Tool.

3. Set the Remove Tool options bar to match the image below......
   

To select the building, we can either draw around the border and when we release the mouse button Photoshop will fill in our selection (if you try this, be sure you end at the same spot that you began to create an enclosed area), or you can simply draw over the building as if we were coloring it with the Brush Tool.

Keep in mind that your final result may be slightly different from mine (because you will have selected an area slightly different from my selection), but you should see something close...

From this...	To this...

Basically what has happened here is the machine learning within Photoshop was not only able to identify that we wanted to remove a building, but noticed the trees around the yellow building and the additional structures behind it and developed objects to fill in the spot. However, you may notice that what happened was not perfect. For example, look closely at this part of the image...

Photoshop probably did not do a very good job on the rocks or on the area directly behind the yellow car. For me, Photoshop just kinda extended the yellow cars body (keep in mind that it may or may not have done this to you depending on your selection). As it turns out, one of the really cool thing about the Remove Tool is that if things happened that we are not really happy with, we can simply reapply the tool and get different results.

Next, let's take a look at removing some objects near lines, shadows, and areas we want to keep.

9. On the right side of the image, locate the two spots indicated below...
   

We are going to remove these two groups of vehicles and people at the same time. Right now, the Remove Tool is set to process changes each time we release the mouse button because we currently have the Remove after each stroke option activated, as indicated on the Remove Tool options bar...

We need to deactivate this so that we can select two non-adjacent areas.

10. On the Remove Tool options bar, click the Remove after each stroke checkbox to remove the check and turn off that option...
    
11. Set the size of the brush to 15...
    
12. Make sure Add to brushed area is selected (the icon with the plus surrounded by a circle in the above image) - this will allow us to paint over two non-adjacent areas
13. Paint over the left set of vehicles and people, being sure to include some of the area surrounding the vehicles as well...
    
14. Paint over the set of vehicles and people on the right...
    
    Be sure to include not only the vehicles but the shadows as well

Note that if you paint over an area that you do not want to include, you can click the Subtract from brushed area icon...

and paint over that area to remove it from the selection.

15. When you have two selections you like, click the Apply to current strokes checkbox...
    
    Photoshop will remove the selected items...
    

Pay particular attention to the vehicles from the left selection area that were parked alongside the dirt. Notice that not only did Photoshop successfully recognize that the vehicles were parked on asphalt, but it identified the dirt and kept the shape of it intact...

So how does the Remove Tool compare to the Content-Aware Fill tool? The image below is the same area we just worked with, except I used the Content-Aware Fill tool...

Notice that are many more blemishes, areas of distortion, and errors (the red arrows) in the end result that will have to be fixed using some other removal method. Also notice that the dirt area has been misshapen into a point instead of a nice curve. Clearly, the Remove Tool works better.

You may be wondering at this point what kind of job the Remove Tool would do on an image with a complicated background such as our junkyard image...

To test what we get in this instance, I made two different selections of the dark red car with tan roof...

and let Photoshop's Remove Tool fill in the space. This is what Photoshop returned...

Note that in the first image on the left above that it kinda looks like Photoshop thought the white vehicle was a boat or a surfboard. In the second image above right, it is unclear where Photoshop got the information for the image it created. Remember that the difference between the two images comes entirely from the differences between the two selections that I made.

On this is very clear - if you were sitting there thinking that the Remove Tool can do everything and you'll just use that all of the time, as you can see that's not a good idea. It didn't do a very good job here. We can use some of the other removal methods to clean this image up and eventually get what we want, but this means the possibility of going outside Photoshop's tools and using additional images to solve our problems (for example, for this image we would need to find an image that shows the side of a car similar to the white car that we could use as source material and then fill in the gravel using other parts of this image).

While the Remove Tool does an amazing job, it obviously has some issues. Here are a few things to keep in mind while using the Remove Tool:

1. As with the Content-Aware Tool, Photoshop has a problem with images that have lots of different objects and details surrounding the object you want to remove. Objects that the machine learning can identify and recreate will work fine, but when you are dealing with something specific, like having to recreate the side of a specific model of car, the AI is unable to be that precise (for now).
2. The larger the object being removed the more likely Photoshop is to create unnecessary extra material.
3. Complicated patterns and lines may be distorted and not line up correctly. This is actually a common problem for all of Photoshop's tools that automatically remove things. If we compare the result of using Content-Aware Fill and the Remove Tool on the cat image,...
   
   you can see that the Remove Tool did about the same as Content-Aware Fill.
4. The selection that you paint with the Remove Tool is important. Even minor changes to the starting selection will result in a different outcome. You need to be sure to include some of the background around what you want to remove.
5. Even if the end results are not perfect, using the Remove Tool can be a quick and easy first step. You can then clean up the image using any of the other tools we have covered.
6. It is not uncommon for there to be additional clean-up after using the Remove Tool, especially if the background is 'busy', so don't be surprised.

Let's save our work up to this point.

Our next tool, Generative Fill, not only allows us to remove objects, but can generate new objects to replace them.