Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
At Google I/O 2017, Google showed what quickly became one of its most infamous product teases in history: removing a chain link fence from a picture of a child playing baseball. The pitch was that we would soon be able to remove pesky fences automatically from our pictures with the help of computer vision, and it looked like magic.
While Google Photos would eventually get object removal for more obvious photo distractions like garbage cans and photo-bombers, the fence-erasing we had long been promised never came to fruition. However, over eight years later, that’s changed.
Thanks to Google’s two latest AI image editing tools — Help Me Edit and Gemini Nano Banana — the fence-removing future Google promised in 2017 is finally here. And the results are pretty incredible.
Removing fences in Google Photos with Help Me Edit
Joe Maring / Android Authority
The first way to do this is with the new Help Me Edit feature in Google Photos. You’ll need a Pixel 10 to access it, but if you have one, it’s the easiest way to remove those horrible fences once and for all.
To get started, open Google Photos, find a picture with a fence covering your subject, and tap the Edit button. From the new editing UI, you should see the “Help me edit” prompt box at the bottom of your screen. Tap this and type in your prompt. It’s that simple.
Before Help Me Edit After Help Me Edit
For this first example, I wanted to try something simple. I found a picture of a goat with a relatively small fence covering part of its body and told Help Me Edit to “remove the fence in front of the goat.” A couple of seconds later, the fence completely vanished.
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