Looks like Gemini Flash 2.0 lets you remove watermarks from pictures, but there's a catch

What you need to know

• Gemini Flash 2.0 expanded its features to more people, bringing access to its image generation feature and more.
• Users on Reddit found a nifty way to get rid of watermarks from pictures downloaded via Getty Images, Shutterstock, and the like.
• Gemini removes the original watermark on the image; however, it leaves a tiny one of its own at the bottom left corner of the image.

Google announced a whole host of features that will be available to more people via Gemini Flash 2.0, last week. One of them was the ability to experiment with image generation. This feature was shown off back in December, and now developers can test this new capability using an "experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Flash" via AI Studio.

This model allows users to give Gemini a prompt, and it can generate illustrated images of a story and give you a detailed recipe of a dish you plan on making, accompanied by real-life illustrations of the recipe. It can also generate images with text renders that could be helpful for people who'd like to use them in social media posts.

That said, it looks like it does something way more nifty that we didn't realize we needed until now. A Reddit post brought to light the ability to delete watermarks on images via this new experimental feature (as spotted first by Tech Crunch).

Gemini is pretty good in removing watermarks from r/singularity

As seen in a series of images on the Reddit post above, the user uploaded an image filled with watermarks onto Gemini's latest model and attempted to delete the watermarks. This resulted in a clearer image free from unnecessary watermarks; however, Gemini left its logo behind on the generated image, making sure that people were aware that the image in question had been edited.

It did the same thing with images from Shutterstock, Istock, and Getty images, platforms that require a subscription fee to rid images of their watermarks. According to the publication, Gemini 2.0 Flash appears to struggle with certain semi-transparent watermarks and watermarks that canvas large portions of images.

That said, removing watermarks without consent is illegal and could pull the person or organization doing it into unnecessary lawsuits. On another X post showcasing watermarks being removed from Getty images, a user stated this morning (Mar. 17) that they were no longer able to generate images without a watermark on AI Studio.

This suggests that Google could've noticed the growing trend of people doing this and pulled the plug on this specific prompt.

Android Central reached out to Google about the above, and we'll update this article once we have more information.