AI Image Editor 2026: Remove Objects, Extend Photos and Fix Faces With Free Tools

Photoshop's AI features cost $20/month. Open source AI editing does the same job locally - here are the tools and the exact workflow.

💡 What You Will Learn

Photoshop's AI features cost $20/month. Open source AI editing does the same job locally - here are the tools and the exact workflow.

## The Open Source Photoshop Moment Generative editing - removing objects, extending images, changing faces - was the killer feature that pushed people to paid tools. Every one of those features now has a free local equivalent, and the quality gap has basically closed for most tasks. ## The Tools - **ComfyUI (125,304 stars)** - the power tool. Node-based interface where you build editing pipelines: inpainting (remove/replace objects), outpainting (extend beyond borders), face restoration. Steeper learning curve, unlimited ceiling. - **Stable Diffusion WebUI / A1111 (164,462 stars)** - the friendlier all-in-one. One-click installers, inpainting built in, huge community of models. Start here. - **InvokeAI** - a middle ground: production-grade editing UI (object inpainting, canvas tools) without the node-graph complexity. - **CodeFormer (18,102 stars)** - the face-fix specialist. Restores old, blurry, or AI-degraded faces. One command line, dramatic results on old photos. ## The Three Editing Moves Everyone Needs 1. **Object removal.** Paint over the object (tourist in your photo, power line in your landscape), run inpaint, done. The model fills with plausible background. 2. **Outpainting.** Extend a photo beyond its original edges - make a square photo 16:9, add sky above a cropped building. The model invents continuation that matches. 3. **Face restoration.** Run CodeFormer on old family photos. It rebuilds faces at realistic detail, then you dial the strength back to avoid the plastic look. ## Hardware Reality Inpainting on a 6-8GB GPU: a few seconds per edit. On CPU-only: 1-3 minutes per edit - usable, but batch work will test your patience. For occasional edits, CPU works; for volume, any used GPU with 8GB+ makes the difference. ## The ComfyUI Advantage Once you have done manual edits a few times, ComfyUI workflows turn them into one-click presets: load a photo, press a button, get a cleaned version. That is the 2026 way - not editing faster, but automating the edit.