Open a photo, and then select the Crop, Rotate, Geometry panel.
Last updated on
Aug. 3, 2026
Learn how to use Generative Expand to extend your photo beyond its original borders, filling in new areas with content that matches the original photo.
Generative Expand lets you extend a photo's frame beyond its original dimensions and fill the transparent portion with generated content that blends naturally with the rest of the photo. You can recover photos with a poorly framed shot or give more space to a tightly cropped subject using Generative Expand. It's also useful for cleaning up and filling transparent gaps left behind after geometric edits.
Apart from fixing framing issues, you can repurpose a photo for formats like banners or social crops, or reconstruct a missing edge.
Use Generative Expand to detect and fill the expanded borders with generated content.
Use Generative Expand
Select the Enable Expand option.
Do any of the following to expand the crop boundaries:
- Drag the edge outwards in the direction you want to expand. To maximize the quality of generated areas, expand one edge at a time.
- Select the aspect ratio from the Aspect dropdown menu or select the Rotate Aspect Ratio, and then drag the crop edges to fit the photo.
You can also use Generative Expand on panoramic photos or after correcting a photo's perspective in the Geometry tool, as perspective correction leaves empty areas along one or more edges of the photo.
In the Generative Expand panel, select one of the following options from the Method dropdown menu:
- Firefly Fill & Expand: Analyzes your original photo's lighting and perspective to fill the transparent area with realistic backgrounds.
- Content-Aware Fill: Fills the transparent portion of the photo with similar content from surrounding areas. Content-Aware Fill does not require any credits to generate.
Select Generate. Lightroom desktop generates three variations for the Firefly Fill & Expand option and one variation for Content-Aware Fill. Use the arrowicon to view each variation in the image preview.
You can view the credits used for Firefly Fill & Expand from the generative credits icon.
Use the arrowicon to view each variation in the image preview.
To create another set of variations, select Generate More.
To view the photo without the expanded portion, select and hold the Toggle Visibility icon.
To remove the generated variations, select the More like this icon next to the Generative Expand panel, and then select Remove all generations.
Select the variation you like, and then select Keep to make the expanded area part of your photo.
