Apple just added new photo editing tools in iOS 27 — and they're absolute game-changers

(Image credit: Future / edited with Gemini) Unless you are a professional photographer, chances are your camera roll is filled with almost-perfect shots. The horizon tilts slightly to the left, a stranger’s elbow sneaks into the edge of a portrait, or a tight crop leaves out half of the background.Fixing these small mistakes used to mean either living with the ruined shot or downloading third-party editing software. With the release of iOS 27, Apple has built three generative AI tools directly into the Photos app that handle these common framing blunders automatically.If your iPhone supports Apple Intelligence, taking your photos from messy to pristine takes only a few seconds. Here's how to use the three new editing features built into your camera roll. Add missing background space with Extend If you could not step back far enough to capture a full landscape or accidentally cut off the top of a building, Extend fills in the missing space.Open your photo in editing mode and select Extend from the Apple Intelligence menu. Pinch and drag outward on the edges of your photo to create extra canvas space. The AI analyzes the surrounding texture, lighting, and colors, automatically generating new background elements to fill the expanded areas. This tool is also ideal for leveling tilted horizons, giving the software enough border room to tilt the image without forcing you to crop into your main subject. Change your perspective with Reframe Getting the right moment often means sacrificing the perfect angle. Reframe allows you to alter the perspective of a photo long after the shutter has closed.To use it, open any picture in the Photos app, select the editing menu, tap tools, and choose Reframe. Then simply touch and drag the image to shift the camera angle. As you move the frame, a blurred border appears around the original edges. Once you hit Save, Apple Intelligence generates matching visual details to fill in the new borders, keeping the scene looking entirely natural. Erase background clutter with upgraded Clean Up The built-in Clean Up feature has received a major intelligence upgrade, making it significantly better (and faster) at erasing photobombers and complex distractions.Select Clean Up under the editing menu and tap or brush over the object you want to remove — such as a background trash can, a rogue arm, or power lines. While previous versions struggled with textured backgrounds, the updated algorithm recognizes shadows, patterns, and depth to blend the erased area seamlessly into the surrounding environment. (Image credit: Future)Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow Tom's Guide Entertainment on TikTok and Instagram. More from Tom's Guide This clever iOS 27 Wallet upgrade means you'll never have to carry a physical loyalty card againI turned my iPhone screen completely gray for two weeks — here's how making it boring helped me get my brain backThese 5 hidden iPhone features aren't flashy — but they're usefulSign up to the Tom's iGuide weekly newsletter with coverage on everything from product launches to software updates, this is your go-to source for the latest updates on all the best Apple content. Kaycee is Tom's Guide's How-To Editor, known for tutorials that get straight to what works. She writes across phones, homes, TVs and everything in between — because life doesn't stick to categories and neither should good advice. She's spent years in content creation doing one thing really well: making complicated things click. Kaycee is also an award-winning poet and co-editor at Fox and Star Books.