Swapping a background for a new colour
Marketplaces ask for pure white product shots, passport-style photos need a plain light backdrop, and a social post looks better when the picture matches your brand colour. This page uses the same engine as our background remover, but it starts with a solid colour as the output instead of transparency. Click the old background, pick the new colour and the tool paints it in behind your subject.
Getting clean edges
The most common problem is a thin outline of the old colour around the subject. Two controls fix it. Tolerance decides which shades count as background, so raise it until stray patches go. Feather softens the border, and the defringe step removes the old background tint from edge pixels so a grey backdrop does not leave a grey rim on the new colour. If a little is still wrong, switch to the brush: erase leftovers, restore anything cut away, and undo any stroke that did not help.
Choosing the new colour
- White (#FFFFFF) suits marketplace listings and documents.
- A light grey or soft blue is gentler for portraits.
- For consistency, paste the exact HEX code of your brand colour; the colour picker tool can read it from an existing image.
Limits to expect
Colour replacement works when the old background is fairly flat. Gradients, wrinkles in a cloth backdrop and cast shadows can leave patches, and the shadow under a product will not move to the new colour. For busy backgrounds try the optional AI cutout, which is a small model and therefore weaker on hair and fine edges, then finish with the brush.
Worked example: a product on a grey backdrop
A 300 × 300 product shot has a light grey backdrop (#E0E0E0), a dark 100 × 200 product in the middle and a slightly lighter strip (#F0F0F0) along the top where the light was stronger. Click the grey with the default tolerance of 20. The tool measures how far each colour is from the one you clicked: a tolerance of 20 accepts a distance of up to 36, and the strip is only 16 away, so it is replaced as well. The status reports 77%, which is everything except the product and a soft one-pixel rim around it. Pick white (#FFFFFF) and the download keeps the full 300 × 300 size.
Privacy and formats
Everything runs on your device and nothing is uploaded. Because the new background is solid, you can download as JPEG, PNG or WebP; use PNG when you need lossless quality and WebP when you need a small file.
Frequently asked questions
Can I change a background that is not a single colour?
The colour mode works best on plain backgrounds. For photographs, try the AI cutout mode and refine the edges with the brush. Expect less accuracy on hair and fine details.
How do I make the background pure white?
Click the old background, choose Solid colour as the output, set it to #FFFFFF and download. Adding a small feather usually looks more natural than a hard edge.
Why does the shadow stay grey?
A shadow is part of the picture, not the background. Remove it with the erase brush or leave it, since a soft shadow often makes a product photo look more realistic.
Which format should I download?
JPEG is smallest for photos, PNG preserves every pixel, and WebP gives small files with good quality. If you may want transparency later, keep a transparent PNG as well.