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.

ACDSee Photo Studio (Version 2026-19.1.0-4501) – As of June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Subject
• AI Background
• AI Denoise
• AI Develop Presets
• AI Face Edit / AI Hair Masking / Splotch Removal
• AI Facial Recognition / People Mode AI
• AI Object Selection
• AI Sky
• AI Super-Resolution

Adobe Photoshop Elements (Version 2026) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Assistant
• AI Remove

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Fill
• Generate Image

Affinity Photo (version 2.6) – As of June 21, 2026 

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Object Select
• Select Subject

Aiarty (Version 3.12) – As of June 21, 2026

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI-Assisted Colour & Tone
• AI Eraser (new beta)
• AI Denoise /DeBlur / Artifact Removal
• AI Image Enhancer / Super Resolution
• AI Image Matting / Background 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.

Darktable (version 5.6.0) – As of June 23, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Object Masking
• Parametric Masks

Draw masks / Mask Manager

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Denoise
• Raw Denoise
• Upscaling

Capture One (version 16.8) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Denoise (New)
• AI Portrait Retouching
• Smart Adjustments

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Crop and Composition
• AI Erase
• AI Masking and Selection

DxO PhotoLab (Version 9.6) – As of June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Masks
• Local & Lens Sharpness Optimization
• Noise Reduction

Freepik AI (Version 2.0) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

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

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Background Remover – cutout is non-generative but with paired with AI-created new background the become generative
• AI Expand (new)
• AI Image Generator
• AI Reimage / Variations
• AI Retouch (in-painting & out-painting)

GIMP (Version 3.2.4) – As of June 21 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Object Removal
• Image Upscaling
• Smart Selection

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

Third party plugins available for GIMP:

• gimp-ai (Pythn plugin) – AI impainting, AI image generation, AI layer composite using Open AI’s gpt-1
• GIMP-ML – Dall 3/2 integation, text t0 image and outpainting
• OpenVINO AI Plugins for GIMP – Stable Diffusion 3 – object removal, smart selection, image upscaling

KRITA (Version 5.3.2.1) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Auto white balance & colour correction
• AI Lens correction
• AI-masking
• AI-noise reduction
• AI-powered selection tools
• AI-sharpening
• AI-upscaling 
• AI Sky replacement 

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 (Version Classic 15.3) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Masking
• Denoise
• AI Dust Removal
• Generative Remove – people & reflections (without selecting Use Generative AI)
• Reflection Removal

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Remove – people and reflections (selecting Use Generative AI)
• Distraction Removal

Lightroom – (Version Cloud based 9.3) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Assisted Culling
• Denoise
• Lens Blur
• Raw Details
• Remove Distracts – without Generative AI selected
• Sharpen / Topaz Sharpen AI
• Super Resolution
• Select Background
• Select Objects
• Select People
• Select Subject (version 5)
• Upscale (Topaz Gigapixel)

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Remove Distractions – with generative AI activated
• Generative Remove

Luminar Neo AI (Version 1.27) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

Basic Enhancement Features:

• Background Removal AI
• Colour Transfer & Atmosphere AI
• Enhance AI automatically balanes Exposure, contrast, saturation, shadows and highlights
• Face AI – Skin AI & Body AI
• HDR Merge & Focus Stacking
• Mask AI / Object Select AI
• Noiseless AI – Supersharp AI & Upscale AI
• Portrait Bokeh AI
• Relight AI adjusts lighting 
• Structure AI

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Erase 
• Generative Crop
• GenExpand
• GenSwap 

ON1 Photo Raw (Version 2026.4) – As of June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Edit Colour Adjustments
• Face Recovery / Face Restoration
• Mask AI/ Subject & Background Masks
• Match Colour
• Noise reduction and artifact cleanups
• Resize AI
• Super Select AI

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Generative Eraser with Stability AI 

Generative Crop with Stability AI

Photomator – (Version 3.4.14) As of  June 23, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Auto Enhance
• Colour Adjustments
• Linear / Radial Masks
• LUT Support
• Multi-channel Curves
• ML Crop
• ML Enhance
• Wheel-based Colour Balance

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Masking / Selective Adjustments
• Denoise
• Repair Tool
• Super Resolution

Photopea – (Version 5.6) As of  June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Content-aware healing / Cleanup tools
• Remove BG / Magic Cut
• Smart Objective

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Magic Replace

Text-to-Image

Photoshop – (Version 27.8) As of  June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Denoise
• General mask / Refinemen
• Find Distractions (with No AI or Automatic)
• Remove Tool –  in AI Off mode
• Sky Replacement – non-generative
• Super Resolution
• Topaz AI Gigapixel 

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• Firefly AI Assistant –  can add or remove elements with synthetic pixelx
• Harmonize – blends objects/people into images
• Generative Background – with AI generative content
• Generative Expand – changes aspect ratio in new added area
• Generative Fill
• Generative Fill (FLUX.1 Kontext (Pro))
• Generative Fill (FLUX.2 pro)
• Generative Fill (Gemini 2.5 with Nano Banana)
• Generative Fill (Gemini 3 with Nano Banana Pro) 
• Generative Image – Text-to-image
• Generate Similar – prompt based variation
• Generative Upscale – enlarges a low-resolution image
• Remove Distractions (when set to “Auto” or “Generative AI on”)
• Remove Tool – With Generative Mode 
• Sky Replacement – with generative feature

Picmonkey (Version 1.20.12) – As of June 21, 2026

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.

PicsArt AI – (Version ) As of  June 22, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• Auto Retouch
• Background Remover
• Selective Blur
• Smart Crop

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Avatar
• AI Background
• AI Expand – expands boundaries of image
• AI Image Generator 
• AI Magic Edit -generative fill
• AI Object Remove 
• AI Replacement
• AI Style Transfer

Snapseed (Version 4.0) – As of June 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

• AI Smart Masking
• AI Object Brush
• One-tap AI Masking

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Advanced Portrait Retouching

Topaz Labs (Version 4.0.4) – As of January 21, 2026

Safe Tools (No synthetic being added)

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

Flagged Tools (synthetic pixels added)

• AI Bloom
• AI Face Recovery 3
• AI Face Sharpen Portrait
• AI Gaia 2
• AI Sharpen Wildlife
• AI Starlight 2.5
• AI Super Focus 3
• AI True Detection Model
• AI Wonder 2 (denoises + sharpens + upscales in one step)

Windows Photo (Version 2026.11060.2004.0) – As of June 21, 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.
• Upscaling