AI has seemingly suffused into almost every part of lives, whether we want it to or not. Image editing was a very early use of the technology, and it’s remained one of the few things that AI is quite good at.
Magic Eraser was one of the first really impressive AI features that Google rolled out, and while it was later upgraded into Magic Editor, the name stuck.
As an automatic editor, it is powerful and versatile, removing people, animals, and objects, changing colors, or moving entire subjects around the photo.
But in recent months, Magic Eraser has hit a bit of a rut. Once reliable, frequent users are finding it much less so. I’ve found the same problem.
Thankfully, there’s another option — TouchRetouch. This app has become my mainstay in areas where Magic Eraser fails, and I love it.
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Magic Eraser has become unreliable
As sad as I am to admit it, Magic Eraser has become unreliable.
Sometimes it works as well as it always has, and its ability to Reimagine sections of an image, or remove entire sections of a shot remains unparalleled. But now, I’m often finding it falls flat.
The details I’d aimed to remove are gone, yes, but in its place is an ugly artifact that’s no better than what was taken away. Hallucinations of imagined objects are placed where they never were. Sometimes, it misunderstands what it needs to do, and misses entirely.
It’s also quite slow. Erasing one element of an image takes longer than it should, and locks you out of the photo for a few agonizing seconds. As such, you can’t skim for your next target, and just have to wait and see whether this one needs to be redone.
Complaints have become increasingly common. Magic Eraser fans are becoming less and less forgiving of its flaws, especially when it seems to be taking steps backwards, despite Google’s increasingly strong grasp of AI as a whole.
A lot of them have come to the same conclusion as myself. Despite a lingering loyalty to Magic Eraser, I’ve found myself pulled away to another app entirely.
I didn’t initially expect much from TouchRetouch. There are hundreds of apps that mimic Google’s core functions and apps, and they’re not always worth testing, never mind relying on. But TouchRetouch felt different.
It’s very much an editing app at its core, and its interface reflects that. If you’ve used Snapseed or any notable smartphone image editor, TouchRetouch will feel very familiar.
The simple interface belies a versatile set of erasing tools. There are tools for removing objects, lines, and meshes, as well as a clone stamp, and a blur function.
The way each tool executes is smoother than Magic Eraser. Mesh removal works excellently, automatically finding meshes in images and removing them sublimely.
Line removal doesn’t work the same way, and requires some manual work that can be fiddly in busy images, but usually tapping lines is enough for the tool to recognize them and remove them.
Object removal is, surprisingly, the weakest element. It works well, but it’s often not as seamless as Magic Eraser would be. But my word, is it fast.
You can select the objects to be erased by either scrubbing or lassoing them, and the removal takes place quickly, without screening the image from you in the way Magic Eraser does.
It makes it a much better editing experience if you’re trying to remove a lot of elements, one after another.
If you’re a frequent editor, TouchRetouch may be better for you
Magic Editor, when it works, is better at a lot of these things. But its reliability has fallen by the wayside in recent months, and even when it does work, it’s so achingly slow.
TouchRetouch isn’t perfect as an editing app, and at times, Magic Eraser does a better job. But it’s also very fast, comes with a more versatile set of specialized tools, and works a lot smoother than Google’s version.
So while I hate to turn away from an app that left me astounded when it was introduced, I have to admit the world has moved on.
However, it is worth keeping in mind that TouchRetouch isn’t a free app, and it’s here that Google’s Magic Eraser holds the upper hand.
TouchRetouch costs just $15 for a year’s subscription, which isn’t a high cost at all. But if you don’t use editing software very much, it’s likely to be more than you’re willing to pay.
TouchRetouch is very much for the frequent editors among us. The people who like to pick out errant hairs or pluck innocent bystanders out of frame, where they might ruin a good composition.
If you use Magic Eraser once every few months, it’s probably worth sitting through the longer load times. But if you’re constantly in editing software? Then TouchRetouch is worth the three-day free trial.
