Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop app icons float over a snowy forest path, representing the photoshop relight tool.

Adobe’s Relight Trades Fine Detail for Lighting Control, Generating at 2K

2026-11-15

Disclosure: DPReview attended Adobe Max, and Adobe covered travel and lodging expenses.

Adobe’s annual conference, Adobe Max, brought updates to both Photoshop and Lightroom, including a new photoshop relight tool. Some appeared in the main keynote. Others received little attention. Public detail was thin, so I arranged demonstrations with the product managers for both programs and tried several features myself.

Photoshop relight tool

Relight

The photoshop relight tool changes the apparent lighting in a photograph. You can add up to three lights, and each light has controls for position, depth, color, diffusion and more.

Black dog in profile with tongue out, lit by bright pink light against a blurred outdoor background.

Stephen Nielson, Adobe’s senior director of product management for Photoshop, showed how much of the original light to keep. You can retain some existing light for a blended result, or replace it completely.

Relight also affects reflections. Nielson said the tool can remove reflections tied to the original lighting or blend them with the new light. That goes well beyond basic photoshop lighting adjustments that only change brightness in different areas.

Snowy forest path at dusk beside a small blue soda can in a restyle panel. — Snowy forest path at dusk with a small blue soda can preview in a generative restyle panel.

Output resolution is a separate issue. Nielson said the photoshop relight tool generates its content at 2K and upscales it to match the image. Document pixel dimensions stay the same, but the original detail may not survive. He acknowledged that some detail loss is typical of generative AI.

If original detail matters more than AI reinvention, a sharp prime can capture it before any editing starts. Read about Venus Optics’ Laowa 24mm tilt-shift lens for a look at capture-side control.

Side-by-side comparison: original raw-converted photo on left, relit version on right. — The image on the left is the original file (converted to JPG from Raw with no additional edits), while the one on the right uses the Relight feature.

When I tried the photoshop relight tool, Photoshop displayed a warning that did not appear during the demo: “Relight operates on 8-bit image data; fine color detail may be lost.” Resolution is not the only constraint. The tool also limits the color data it processes.

I asked whether Relight could reveal a subject in deep shadow and invent facial detail that was not in the original. Nielson said the tool probably would not fabricate a person. He had not tested that scenario, so the question remains open.

The photoshop relight tool uses Adobe generative credits. It costs 30 credits per use. The number of monthly credits depends on your plan. The Photography 1TB plan includes 1,000 per month. You can preview lighting and make unlimited adjustments without spending credits. Credits are deducted only when you click “Done” in the Contextual Taskbar.

Generative Restyle

Generative Restyle goes further than lighting. The workflow has several steps. You write a prompt in the Contextual Taskbar, then click the Generative Restyle button that appears once the image generates. A slider controls the strength of the effect. Finally, you click “Capture as layer” to produce a higher-resolution final version.

Restyle can reinterpret a photograph entirely. It can change the time of day, the weather, the season and other conditions. The generative process introduces problems, though. Faces can distort, and small people in the distance and text can break down.

The strength slider adjusts the result, but it cannot protect specific elements. Nielson’s demo used a wedding portrait. When the prompt asked for a different background look, the woman’s facial features changed. The tool generates the whole image at once, so the forest around the couple also changed into what looked like a different location.

Nielson said you can mask areas to preserve them. That approach puts you back in cleanup work, which the tool was meant to reduce. A strength slider is useful, but it does not let you tell Restyle which details to leave alone.

Mountain landscape selfie in a photo editor while a blemish detection dialog appears. — Photo-editing app showing a mountain landscape selfie while a “Detecting blemishes” progress dialog is open.

Restyle’s output resolution is lower than Relight’s. Nielson did not know the exact figure, but he estimated about 1K. My own test showed substantial detail loss. Branches in the forest turned into blobs of texture rather than separate limbs.

Consistency is another concern. A photographer shooting a series would need the same treatment across many frames. Nielson said results should be consistent, but the demo did not show how reliably the tool repeats a treatment without introducing new changes. I would treat Restyle as a creative experiment, not a dependable way to give a set of photographs a unified look.

If you need to change the mood of a photograph without changing its content, or you need fine detail and consistency, these limits matter. Questions about altering the reality of a photograph also arise, but they fall outside this demo.

Restyle is the more expensive of the two. It requires 80 generative credits per use.

Lightroom

Blemish Removal

Adobe named Blemish Removal in its press materials for Max, making it one of the few Lightroom features highlighted there. The tool already existed in Lightroom Mobile. It now arrives on desktop. During my demo, the team said the mobile version was good enough for casual use but fell short of professional standards. That gap is why the rollout to desktop was delayed.

Before and after comparison of a face, with skin blemishes removed on the right. — Left: the original image. Right: blemishes automatically removed.

Blemish Removal is an AI-based tool that detects blemishes and removes them automatically. It keeps natural skin texture rather than smoothing the face. It can also cut retouching time considerably.

Lightroom favorites panel showing a column of frequently used editing controls. — The favorites panel is dedicated to the controls you use the most.

An intensity slider controls the retouching. It does not simply fade the edit across the whole face. The tool removes the most prominent blemishes first, then handles subtler marks as you move the slider further. You can open the mask to erase missed spots or restore areas you want to keep.

Dark Lightroom welcome dialog offering Default, Advanced, and Classic workspace options. — Dark Lightroom “Personalize Your Lightroom” dialog with Default, Advanced, and Classic workspace options and Customize and Done buttons.

You also choose how permanent marks are handled. Birthmarks, piercings and scars can stay in place or be removed along with temporary blemishes. The tool recognizes individual people in an image, so you can apply the same controls separately to each person.

Customizable interface

The cloud version of Lightroom now offers much more interface control. You can choose a default view or a version designed for power users. You can also select the Classic UI, which may help longtime Lightroom Classic users move to the cloud application.

The Favorites panel offers more practical value. It lets you build your own Edit panel. You can hide the controls you never use and move the ones you use daily to the top.

Heavy generative edits like these also put real strain on a laptop’s processor and memory. For a sense of what current hardware can handle, see Apple’s new M6 MacBook Pro with its 2nm chip, which is worth a look before you commit to a workflow.

I use Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop rather than Lightroom. In ACR, I scroll past controls every day, and that slows my work. I expect Lightroom users face the same friction. A layout built around your own habits should make everyday editing noticeably less tedious.

H/T dpreview.com

Frequently asked questions

How many generative credits does Photoshop’s Relight tool cost per use?

The Photoshop Relight tool costs 30 Adobe generative credits per use. You can preview lighting and make unlimited adjustments without spending credits, and credits are deducted only when you click “Done” in the Contextual Taskbar.

What output resolution does Photoshop’s Relight tool generate at?

Photoshop’s Relight tool generates its content at 2K and upscales it to match the image. Document pixel dimensions stay the same, but the original detail may not survive the process.

Does Photoshop’s Generative Restyle distort faces in photos?

In Adobe’s demo, Generative Restyle changed the woman’s facial features when the prompt asked for a different background look. The strength slider cannot protect specific elements, so the tool does not let you preserve details like faces.

How many generative credits does Generative Restyle use per use?

Generative Restyle requires 80 generative credits per use, making it the more expensive of the two Photoshop tools. Relight costs 30 credits per use.