Safe AI Tools: The AI-assisted tools outlined below are approved for use in images submitted into our competitions. These tools utilize AI for enhancement and adjustment purposes but do not generate synthetic elements from AI cloud datasets. They maintain editing transparency that supports our authentication processes.

Flagged Tools: The tools listed below are not permitted in our competitions. These AI-generative tools add synthetic elements sourced from AI cloud datasets and/or lack sufficient editing history metadata, which compromises our ability to authenticate image integrity.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2026 – As of December 19, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Assistant
• AI Remove

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generate Image
• Generative Fill

Affinity Photo – As of December 16, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Full featured Post Processing Application
• No AI tools
• Preserves 
• Ideal for our competitions

Aiarty – As of December 16, 2025

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI-assisted Colour & Tone
• AI Image Enhancer / Super Resolution
• AI Image Matting / Background Removal
• Denoise /DeBlur / Aritfact Removal

Note – Aiarty’s features use AI models trained on datasets to enhance and upscale media locally; they generate new detail from the model’s learned knowledge but do not fetch synthetic elements from a cloud dataset while you edit.

Capture One – As of December 19, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Smart Adjustments
• AI Masking and Selection
• AI Crop and Composition
• AI Portrait Retouching

FLUROBOS – AI Presets – As of January 14, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Eyes
• Hair
• Lips
• Skin – Face & Body
• Subject/Background

Foto – As of December 15, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Denoise
• Sharpen & Deblur
• Upscale & Face Recovery
• Adjust lighting
• Remove objects

Freepik AI – As of December 21, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Crop and resize (basic)
• Rotate and basic transforms
• Pure background removal (cut-out only)
• Upscale / Magnific / Precision

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

GIMP – As of December 15, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Object Removal
• Smart Selection
• Image Upscaling

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Canonical’s Open VINO plugin for GIMP 3.0 introduces AI synthetic element from Stable Diffusion

KRITA (free) – As of February. 3, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI-powered selection tools
• AI-noise reduction
• AI-sharpening
• AI-upscaling while preserving/enhancing details without adding synthetic pixels
• Sky replacement provided new sky was captured by the entrant
• AI-masking
• Lens correction
• Auto white balance & colour correction

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

Krita AI Diffusion Plugin (uses Stability AI modeel)

• in-painting and generative fill by adding synthetic elements
• out-painting – expanding boundaries of image by adding synthetic elements

Lightroom – As of Nov 1, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Basic adjustments (e.g. exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks adjustment) 
• Brush adjustments
• Chromatic aberration removal
• Enhance details
• Graduated filters
• Lens blur
• Noise reduction
• Post-crop vignetting 
• Sharpening
• Generative Remove (without selecting Use Generative AI)

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Remove (selecting Use Generative AI)
• Distraction Removal 

Luminar Neo – As of Dec 23, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

Basic Enhancement Features:

• All standard adjustments (brightness, contrast, hue/saturation, cropping)
• Traditional filters and layer operations
• Enhanced color correction tools
• Brilliance AI tool
• Intelligent depth masking capabilities
• Crop AI (automatic photo composition) 
• Noise AI (noise reduction)
• Supersharp AI (refines blurred images)
• Sky AI (redefine blown out or flat skies)
• Twilight Enhancer AI (work with blue and gold hour image)
• Atmosphere AI (adding fog, mist, haze, etc…)
• Water Enhancer AI (refine and enhance water)
• Relight AI (total control of light in image)
• Magic Light AI (adjust multiple light sources)
• Portrait Bokeh AI (simulate wide open aperture – i.e. 2.0)
• Face AI (adjust – eyes, nose & mouth)
• Skin AI (enhance skin tones)
• Body AI (adjust torso and abdomen)
• AI Assistance – without invoking generative tools (GenErase, GenSwap, GenExpand or AI sky replacement)

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• GenErase – Removes unwanted objects and fills in the area with AI-generated content to blend seamlessly 
• GenSwap – Lets you replace or insert new objects via text prompts and generates corresponding pixels to match the scene 
• GenExpand – Extends the image dimension with new elements not captured by the photographer

ON1 Photo Raw – As of Nov 1, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

Basic Enhancement Features:

• All standard adjustments (brightness, contrast, hue/saturation, cropping)
• Enhanced colour correction tools
• Generative Crop (Local modes – intelligently crops and straightens using original image content)
• Lens blur
• Perfect Eraser (Local mode only – removes dust spots and power lines using existing image data)
• Remove background
• Select – person – background – sky
• Traditional filters and layer operations

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

Cloud-Based AI Generative Features:

• Generative Eraser with Stability AI – Creates new content to fill removed areas (Distractions – wires, people & vehicles)
• Generative Crop with Stability AI – Extends image boundaries with generated content

Photoshop – Version 27.2 (Jan. 9, 2026)

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• All basic adjustments (brightness, contrast, hue/saturation, cropping)
• Traditional filters and layer operations
• Spot Healing Brush Tool (content-aware)
• Clone Stamp Tool
• Denoise 
• Adjust Colour 
• Sky Replacement (replacement sky must be captured by photographer) 
• Traditional content-aware
• Remove Tool (when set to “Generative AI off”) (Content Aware) 
• Find Distractions (with No AI or Automatic)
• Harmonize – blends objects/people into images
• Topaz Gigapixel – enlarges an image focusing on preserving existing image without adding synthetic elements.

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Find Distractions (when set to “Auto” or “Generative AI on”) – uses 1 Adobe credit
• Generative Expand – uses 3 Adobe credits
• Generative Fill (Firefly Image 1) – uses 3 Adobe credits 
• Generative Fill (Firefly Image 3) – uses 3 Adobe credits
• Generative Fill (FLUX Kontext Pro) – uses 10 Adobe credits
• Generative Fill (Flux Pro 2) – uses 20 Adobe credits
• Generative Fill (Gemini 2.5 with Nano Banana) – uses 10 Adobe credits
• Generative Fill (Gemini 3 with Nano Banana Pro) – uses 40 Adobe credits
• Generative Remove (leave prompt blank) – uses 3 Adobe credits
• Remove Background with Generative Fill – uses 1 Adobe credit
• Remove Tool (with automatic or Generative AI on) – uses 1 Adobe credits
• Topaz Lab’s Bloom feature – uses 35 Adobe credits
• Topaz Lab’s Gigapixel expansion up to 25 MP – sues 10 credits 

Picmonkey – As of December 16, 2025

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

The major concern with this application is that it does strip metadata from imported and exported images.

Therefore, this application does not support the editing history required by our authentication process.

Therefore, this application is not arroved for image submissions into CAPA competitions.

Snapseed – As of December 16, 2025

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

The major concern with this application is that it does strip metadata from imported and exported images.

This application does not support the editing history required by our authentication process.

Therefore, this application is not approved for image submissions into CAPA competitions.

Topaz Labs – As of December 15, 2025

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Sharpen
• AI Denoise
• AI Detail Enhancement
• Gigapixel AI

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Bloom 

Windows Photo – As of January 13, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added

• AI Blur – applies blur filter to existing pixels

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Erase
• Remove and Replace Background – may add synthetic pixels and depends the replacement method.