Adobe Lightroom mobile can now open closed eyes with one generative AI tap

Adobe has added a generative AI tool to Lightroom's mobile apps that fixes one of photography's oldest annoyances: the well-composed shot ruined because someone blinked. According to The Verge, the capability was announced by Adobe a day before the report and is available in the iOS, iPadOS and Android versions of the app.

One tap to open closed eyes

When Lightroom mobile detects that a person, or several people, in a photo have their eyes shut, it automatically presents a new Open Eyes Quick Action as an icon sitting over the image. Tapping that icon is all that is required to run the repair.

Rather than copying eyes over from another frame, the tool generates them. The Verge reports that the replacement eyes are synthesized to match the lighting and pose of the original shot, and that the app draws on other pictures of the same person already stored in your Lightroom library as reference, so the results match that individual's eye color, size and shape.

An old problem handled a new way

Rescuing blink-spoiled photos is not new territory for Adobe. As The Verge notes, Photoshop Elements has offered an eye-opening capability for close to a decade. But according to DPReview, the Elements feature works by sourcing the eyes from a separate photo of the subject, and its results depend heavily on how similar the two images are — differences in angle or lighting can leave the swap looking wrong.

Lightroom's approach sidesteps that comparison problem by generating the eyes instead of transplanting them. A comparable fix is technically possible in Photoshop using its generative AI tools, The Verge points out, but it takes more than one tap and it is not free.

Free users get two attempts

The feature is not unlimited on the free tier. According to DPReview, users of the free Lightroom mobile app can try Open Eyes twice before the app prompts them to subscribe to an Adobe Creative Cloud plan that includes additional credits for the company's AI-powered tools.

Why it matters

A blinked group photo is one of the most common reasons an otherwise good picture gets discarded, and fixing it on a phone has so far meant either manual retouching skill or desktop software. Wrapping a generative repair into a single tap moves AI photo manipulation out of the enthusiast workflow and into something any casual smartphone photographer can trigger without thinking about it.

The rollout also illustrates how Adobe is packaging generative features commercially: the capability is free to sample, but sustained use is tied to subscription plans and AI credits. And as synthesized edits of this kind become routine — including edits that alter a person's face — the line between a photograph and a generated image keeps getting thinner, even in a mainstream editing app like Lightroom.