Inpainting
Category: AI Technology, Post-Production
Definition: An AI technique that intelligently fills in, removes, or replaces portions of an image by understanding surrounding context and generating realistic replacements. Used to remove unwanted elements, fix defects, or add new elements seamlessly into fashion imagery.
Why It Matters: Saves products from reshoot by fixing defects; removes distracting background elements; enables quick creative variations; reduces post-production time for complex edits; allows non-experts to perform advanced edits.
Use Cases: Removing mannequin clips and pins, erasing background distractions, fixing garment defects, changing accessory details, extending backgrounds, removing model blemishes, creating ghost mannequin effects.
Example of Real Use Case: A photographer realizes a bright red exit sign appears in the background of 200 product shots. Using AI inpainting, they remove the sign from all images in 30 minutes instead of spending days in manual Photoshop editing.
Software/Service: Adobe Photoshop Generative Fill, Stable Diffusion Inpainting, DALL-E Inpainting, ClipDrop, Cleanup.pictures, Runway ML
Common Issues: Visible seams or inconsistencies, mismatched lighting and shadows, unrealistic textures in filled areas, difficulty with complex patterns, color matching problems, generation of incorrect details.
Do's and Don'ts:
✓ Do use on well-lit, high-quality source images
✓ Do mask precisely for best results
✓ Do verify lighting matches surrounding areas
✓ Do test multiple generations for best result
✗ Don't rely on inpainting for major composition changes
✗ Don't use on critical product detail areas
✗ Don't skip manual refinement when needed
Related Terms: AI Retouching, Generative AI, Image-to-Image, Ghost Mannequin, Clipping Path
Also Known As: AI Fill, Smart Fill, Content-Aware Fill, Generative Fill