What this background remover does
This tool turns a plain background into transparency. In Colour mode you click the background and the tool removes every pixel that is close to that colour. A tolerance slider decides how close counts, and a feather slider softens the cut so edges do not look jagged. In Brush mode you erase leftovers or restore parts that were removed by mistake, and every stroke can be undone. A before and after slider lets you compare the result with the original, and a chequerboard shows which areas are really transparent.
An optional AI cutout mode handles backgrounds that are not one colour. It uses a small open-source model (U2-Net-P, Apache-2.0 licence) that downloads only after you press its button, then runs on your own device.
How to remove a background in four steps
- Drop a picture on the page, choose a file, or paste one from the clipboard.
- Click the background. The tool picks up that exact colour and removes it, starting from the spot you clicked.
- Raise the tolerance until the leftovers disappear, then add a little feather. Stop before the subject starts to fade.
- Switch to Brush for anything that is left, choose transparent, white or a colour as the output, and download.
What works well and what does not
Colour removal works best on product photos shot on white, logos, signatures, screenshots, scans and illustrations: anything where the background is flat and differs from the subject. It struggles with gradients, textures and shadows, or when the subject contains the background colour. A white shirt on a white wall needs the brush.
The AI mode is more flexible but has honest limits. It is a compact model (about 4.7 MB), weaker than large commercial services, so hair, fur, glass and thin straps often come out rough. Treat it as a fast first pass and tidy the edges with the brush.
Choosing the output
Transparency needs PNG or WebP. PNG keeps every pixel exactly; WebP is usually much smaller. JPEG cannot store transparency, so it is offered only with a white or coloured background. Very large pictures are reduced to 4096 pixels on the long side to keep editing smooth.
Worked example: a red rectangle on white
Take a 200 × 150 pixel test graphic: a red 80 × 60 rectangle on a pure white background. Click the white with the default settings (tolerance 20, feather 10, edge smoothing 1 px, only connected areas). The status reads 83% of the picture is now transparent. A hard cut would remove exactly 25,200 pixels, or 84 percent, but edge smoothing keeps a soft one-pixel rim around the rectangle, so 24,916 pixels end up fully transparent. Tick Crop to the subject and the download is 82 × 62 pixels: the rectangle plus that soft rim. Large photos are edited at up to 4096 pixels on the long side, so a 6000 × 4000 picture is worked on at 4096 × 2731.
Privacy: the picture stays here
Colour matching, brush work and export all run in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. If you use the AI model, it is downloaded once and cached, and your photo is still processed on your device.
Frequently asked questions
Why is some of the background still left?
Backgrounds are rarely one perfect colour because of shadows and compression noise. Raise the tolerance, click another part of the background, or switch off the connected-areas option, then use the brush.
Why did part of my subject disappear?
The tolerance is too high or the subject contains the background colour. Lower the tolerance, keep the connected-areas option on, and use the restore brush to bring the missing part back.
Is the cutout good enough for hair?
Not reliably. Colour tools cannot separate hair from a busy background, and the small AI model gives soft edges. A plain, evenly lit backdrop plus the feather slider works best.
Can I save a transparent image as JPEG?
No. JPEG has no transparency. Save as PNG or WebP for transparency, or choose white or a solid colour and download a flattened picture.
Is the AI model free for commercial use?
The model is U2-Net-P from the U-2-Net project, released under the Apache-2.0 licence, which permits commercial use. Colour and brush modes need no model.