I rewrote afre_cleanphoto to be simpler yet faster and better (I hope), though the testing is next to nil. (Only on 502.jpeg; living dangerously. 
)
Highlights
1 One less parameter, which I like.
2 Connected regions are processed as one region. No splitting tiles: faster in place processing.
3 Inpainting using inpaint(or inpaint_pde) instead of morphological open. May have the downsides I have shown in another thread on inpainting but when it works it looks less noticeable than open.
Discussion
2 and 3 are in fact two separate problems and could be two independent commands. 2 could be a generalized command used for user specified local processing, saving time and leaving parts of the image unprocessed. Next steps would be to make it smarter and blend better. 3 has room to grow too. It isn’t exactly seamless, doesn’t content fill evenly and removes and doesn’t add in texture. Of course, none of this is easy to do.
Only when there is more than one item, which there isn’t. Good catch.
I decided to do it that way because it makes more sense.