Adobe pushed Lightroom v9.6 on September 29, and the headline feature is Prompt to Edit: type what you want changed about a photo and Lightroom hands back a new version. It’s an early access tool, which is Adobe’s label for a feature still in testing.
What changed
Prompt to Edit lives in Lightroom desktop only for now, not Lightroom Classic or mobile. Per The Lightroom Queen, you open it from a new icon in the right-hand toolstrip, just above Versions. Lightroom suggests sample prompts to get you started, and you can write your own.
Adobe says it’s powered by Google’s Nano Banana model, and its demos lean on restoration jobs (cleaning dust and scratches off an old scan, colorizing a black-and-white photo) alongside bigger creative changes like swapping a sky or adding fog.
The important detail is how it works. It doesn’t move your sliders to match a description. Per Adobe’s own demo, “the entire photo is regenerated,” and the result is added to your library as a new image. Output comes in 2K or 4K.
The same update also improves Reflection Removal on glass, windows, and water, and expands camera and lens support.
Why it matters for designers
For anyone doing restoration or quick comps, getting a prompt-driven generative edit without a round trip to Photoshop or Firefly is a real convenience. Old-photo cleanup in particular has always been slow, careful work, and a “fix the scratches” prompt is a decent first pass to judge before deciding whether a manual retouch is still needed.
It also blurs a line Lightroom has mostly kept: its edits have traditionally been parametric and non-destructive. Prompt to Edit is a different kind of tool living in the same app, and it’s worth knowing which one you’re reaching for.
What to watch out for
Because the whole image is regenerated, expect details you didn’t ask to change to drift: faces, text, textures, and fine edges are the usual suspects with generative models. Compare the result against the original at 100% before trusting it, and don’t use it where the photo needs to stay an accurate record.
Output tops out at 4K, which may be smaller than your camera’s original files, so check the resolution before it goes anywhere near print.
It isn’t free either. Each generation costs generative credits (see the sidebar), and iterating on prompts adds up quickly. And since it’s early access, Adobe may change how it works, what it costs, or which apps get it.
