Editing photos with words
Lesson 6 of 13 in the course “AI Images and Slides”. Free, with animations and a quiz.
Photoshop in one sentence
Liya shot her candle on a table, but a charging cable sticks out in the background. It used to be a Photoshop job. Now she uploads the photo to a chat and writes: “remove the cable in the background.” ChatGPT and Gemini can do this. Kandinsky 6 in GigaChat, according to Sber, changes backgrounds and clothes and does retouching. Alice AI has “Combine photos”, which merges two shots into one. You describe the result and the model does the retoucher’s job.
One edit at a time
It’s tempting to ask for everything at once: remove the cable, change the background, warm the light and add flowers. But the more tasks in one sentence, the more often the model changes things it shouldn’t: a different angle, a different candle, the label gone. One edit at a time is more reliable. Remove the cable, check, save. Then the background. Then the light. If a step ruins the shot, just go back to the last good version instead of starting over.
Say what not to touch
When editing, many models redraw the whole picture, just very closely. So small things can quietly change: the letters on the label, fingers, the edge of the tin. An explicit ban helps: “change only the background; keep the candle, label, hands, light and angle as they are.” After the edit Liya puts the original and the result side by side and checks letters, fingers and edges. If something drifted, she says so directly: “restore the label as in the original photo.”
Removing the background
Product cards often need a clean white background. There are four quick ways. On an iPhone with iOS 16 or later you can press and hold the subject in a photo and drag it into another app already cut out. In ChatGPT or Gemini, upload the photo and ask: “make the background pure white, keep a soft shadow under the candle.” In GigaChat, Kandinsky 6 changes the background on request. Canva has a background remover button, but on the paid plan. A soft shadow under the product makes the card look real, not cut out with scissors.
A copy of a copy
If you edit a picture that’s already been edited, eight times in a row, small distortions pile up. The face slowly becomes someone else’s, colours drift, textures turn plastic. Like a photocopy of a photocopy. It’s most noticeable in portraits. The rule is simple: keep the original at hand and make important edits from it. And if the result gets strange after several steps, start a new branch from the original photo, not from the latest version.
An edit template
Put it all together: upload the original, ask for one edit, name what to keep, compare with the original and save the good version. Then the next edit. Copy the template below and change only what’s in brackets. It works in ChatGPT, Gemini and other chats where you can attach a photo.
Check yourself
- Liya needs to remove a cable, change the background and warm the light. What’s most reliable?
Correct answer: Three separate edits, checking each one. With one edit at a time the model changes less by accident, and each step can be undone. - After a background edit, the letters on the label came out slightly different. Why?
Correct answer: The model often redraws the whole picture, not just the background. When editing, many models redraw the frame, just very closely. Small details should be checked against the original and explicitly protected. - After eight edits in a row, the face in a portrait looks like someone else. What now?
Correct answer: Go back to the original and edit from it. Distortions pile up from edit to edit. The original is the only accurate version of the face.