Lightroom’s Generative Expand would be really useful if it worked more than half the time

Generative Expand was added to Lightroom as part of an August 2026 update. It’s been available in Photoshop for a while, but now it’s in Lightroom too. The idea is that you can expand your crop outside the current image boundary and Adobe Firefly will use AI to add surrounding details. It’s handy if you need a different aspect ratio to the one you shot in, for example, and you don’t want to crop existing detail. Just don’t expect too much…

Here’s how you use it:

1. Select the Crop tool
2. Under Crop and Expand, check the Enable Expand checkbox
3. Underneath, select the Aspect ratio you want from the drop-down menu
4. Lightroom will create a new crop marquee outside the current image area to reflect your choice. You can still adjust this manually
5. In the Generative Expand section below, choose Firefly Fill & Expand
6. Now click the Generate button below
7. When Lightroom has generated a new expanded image, look for the Variations button below. You get three variations to choose from
8. When you’ve found the best one, click the Keep button – and that’s it

Now there are a few things to look out for here. First, Generative Expand does a great job on natural textures and objects, so it’s pretty good at ‘expanding’ landscapes. However, it does a pretty terrible job on man-made structures, partly because it’s guessing at what details should be there (how would it know?) and partly because of Firefly’s inherent resolution limits. It does not generate detail at the same level as your original image. With natural textures it doesn’t really show; with man-made objects it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Here’s a 4:3 ratio landscape shot on a Micro Four Thirds camera (that’s the native aspect ratio for this format). It’s fine, but I think it would look much more expansive and impressive in a wider 16:9 ration. Here, Lightroom’s Generative Expand does a very good job. It’s added what looks like real meadows, real forests and real sky.

But this man-made landscape is a disaster. It doesn’t know what the buildings outside the crop area look like (how could it?), so it has to guess at similar structures, which often end up with wonky windows and doors and objects details apparently plucked randomly from hyperspace.

Worse, the lower resolution of the Firefly-generated areas is obvious. This is not an image you would want to zoom in on. This has always been an issue with Firefly’s generative AI and it doesn’t look as if Adobe is any closer to fixing it, unless it decides to offer much more expensive AI models within Lightroom.

Currently, this kind of Firefly generative expand operation will cost you 1 credit, taken directly from your Adobe plan’s monthly allowance. If you don’t like any of the variations and you want to try the Regenerate option, that’s another credit.

The bottom line? Lightroom’s Generative Expand will do a nice job on landscapes where you’re extending natural textures and features. But for urban landscapes or man-made scenes, don’t expect too much. From a distance, you might get away with it, but close up, the limitations of Firefly’s Generative Expand are painfully clear.