Clean Up and Touch Up tools do not appear in Photos Edit tools (M4 Mac Mini OS 15.1)

crabpaws wrote:

Thanks. That article says nothing about how to enable Clean Up on an M4 Mac mini.

The article is stating in which countries the Clean Up is available at all. We still do not know, where your Mac has been manufactured and which country you are in and if the system language is set to a supported language, sorry.

The clean-up tool is using artificial intelligence to recognize scenes and objects, and that requires a supported language setting for the system language and Siri language to be able to name the recognized objects. I had to upgrade to macOS 15.4 to be able to use the Clean-up tool in my country.

The clean-up tool and the retouch tool are mutually exclusive. On a Mac with Apple Intelligence on macOS 15.1 or later you will no longer have the retouch brush at all on macOS 15.1. The clean-up tool is replacing a part of the Retouch functionality. When I want to use the retouch brush to clone objects, I have to use my old Intel Mac. See: Remove distractions and imperfections from your photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK) (the second paragraph)

"Retouch photos to remove imperfections

You can use the Retouch tool to clean up blemishes, dust specks and other small imperfections in a photo.

Note: Retouch is available in macOS 15.0 or earlier or macOS 15.4 or later on Mac computers with Apple silicon, and on Intel-based Mac computers."

If your Mac mini is no longer showing the Retouch brush among the editing tools, you probably are already having the Cean-up tool installed. Perhaps you are looking in the wrong place for it. You will not find Clean-up in the Adjustment pane, but as a separate tab in the toolbar, to the right of the Crop tool. See the first paragraph here: Remove distractions and imperfections from your photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

For some items Clean-up is not available at all - for example for Live Photos with Live effects applied or Portrait Photos with Portrait effects applied. Then you may see a message like this, when you try to switch to the Clean-up pane:

Your system version and Mac model should be supported - It might be your language or region or the place where your Mac has been manufactured, as Mark pointed out: See the requirements for Clean-up: Requirements to use Clean Up in Photos - Apple Support (EG)

"Note: Clean Up is available in macOS 15.1 or later on Mac models with M1 or later, in most languages and regions. To see if Clean Up is available in your language or region, see the Apple Support article Requirements to use Clean Up in Photos."

léonie wrote: …The clean-up tool and the retouch tool are mutually exclusive.

On my Mac I have this in 15.5:

I'm not totally sure how "Retouch" compares to the old version-- it doesn't seem to do cloning, but otherwise it seems the same. Erase is like what was originally "Clean Up," I think.

crabpaws wrote: …That article says nothing about how to enable Clean Up on an M4 Mac mini.

Since you hadn't told us about your country or language, léonie and markwmsn needed to let you know about those restrictions. It's often the only thing we can do when we are left blind. Keep in mind that we are users like you, and we are not responsible for your troubles. Being polite and considerate are more likely to get helpful responses.

You say you are running macOS 15.1, and yet the current version is 15.5. As I remember, 15.1 had Clean Up, but it did not have ReTouch. In 15.5, "Clean Up" has two tools, Erase and Retouch. You're best bet is to update your system.

Are you located in a part of the world where Apple Intelligence is not available, by any chance?

Also, if you just switched, it may take awhile, maybe a few days, for various Apple Intelligence features to appear.