Remove background

The tool uses MODNet, an open portrait matting model, run by a WebAssembly runtime inside the page. Matting is different from simple cut-out selection: instead of deciding "keep" or "drop" for each pixel, the model estimates how much of each pixel belongs to the subject. That is why strands of hair and soft shoulders can come out partly transparent rather than with a hard, jagged outline.

The model works on a 512 × 512 pixel copy of your photo. It produces a matte (a greyscale map of what to keep), which is then scaled back up to the full size of your original and used as the alpha channel. Your original pixels are kept as they are; only their transparency changes. If you choose a colour background, the cut-out is placed on top of a solid fill of that colour.

The first time you run it, the browser downloads the model (about 6 MB) and the runtime that executes it. Both are cached, so later runs start straight away. Until the model has loaded, the live preview shows your untouched photo; once it is in memory, the preview updates as you change options.

Step by step

1. Drop one or more photos on the page, or click to choose them. HEIC photos from an iPhone work as well as JPG, PNG and WebP.
2. Optional: click Edit on a photo to crop or rotate it first. Cropping tightly around the subject gives the model more pixels to work with, which usually means cleaner edges.
3. Choose a Method. Transparent keeps an alpha channel; Colour fills the background with a solid colour of your choice.
4. If you chose Colour, pick the background colour. The white, blue and red background presets set this for you.
5. Set Edge softness. The default of 1 px removes the stair-step look on most photos; raise it for hair and fur, lower it to 0 for hard-edged objects.
6. Pick the output format: PNG or WebP for transparency, JPG for a solid colour background. Adjust Quality if you chose WebP or JPG.
7. Press Remove background, then drag the compare slider on the result to inspect the edges at full size before downloading.

Selecting JPG automatically switches Method to Colour, because JPG cannot store transparency. Switching back to Transparent while JPG is selected moves the format to PNG for the same reason. Files are named with a "-no-bg" suffix for transparent results and "-bg" for colour fills.

Worked example: a product photo to a transparent PNG

Say you have a 2400 × 2400 pixel phone photo of a backpack standing against a plain grey wall, and you want it on a transparent background for a shop listing or a slide.

With Method set to Transparent and the format left on PNG, the model reads a 512 × 512 version of the photo. Each pixel of the matte therefore covers roughly a 4.7 × 4.7 block of the original, and the matte is smoothly interpolated when it is scaled back up. On a backpack with a clear outline this is fine: the edge looks clean at normal viewing size. Zoom in to 100 percent and you will see the edge is slightly soft rather than razor sharp, which is what the default 1 px edge softness is meant to smooth.

Because PNG is lossless, the transparent result is usually larger than the original JPG. If size matters, export as WebP instead: it keeps transparency and is normally much smaller. If the marketplace wants a white background rather than transparency, switch Method to Colour, keep white, and choose JPG.

Cropping first helps more than any setting. If the backpack fills only a quarter of the frame, cropping to it means the model sees the backpack at roughly twice the detail in each direction.

Which photos work well

MODNet was trained on photos of people. It often handles objects and animals with a clear outline too, but treat those as a best-effort case rather than what the model was built for.

Choosing the right output

• Transparent PNG: lossless and supported everywhere. Best for logos, slides, and any layout where you will place the cut-out on something else later.
• Transparent WebP: keeps the alpha channel at a much smaller file size. Good for websites.
• Colour fill as JPG: smallest files and accepted by every form and marketplace. Use it for ID photos, profile pictures and listings that require a white backdrop.
• Colour fill as PNG: useful when you need an exact, flat colour with no compression artefacts, for example before printing.

For passport and visa photos, set the colour the office specifies, export as JPG, then open the result in the Passport photo tool to crop to the official size and print a sheet.

Troubleshooting the edges

• Hair looks chopped or patchy: raise Edge softness to between 2 and 4 px. This blurs the transition so fine strands fade out instead of stopping abruptly.
• A thin halo of the old background shows around the subject: the tool changes transparency, not colour, so semi-transparent edge pixels still carry some of the original wall colour. This is most visible on a dark subject placed over a white background, or the reverse. A colour fill close to the original background hides it; so does a lower edge softness.
• Parts of the subject went missing, such as a hand or a bag strap: the model treated them as background. Crop so the missing part is larger in the frame, or retake with more contrast between subject and background.
• Background patches remain between arms or legs: the model sometimes keeps small enclosed gaps. Try a tighter crop. With a colour background, you can paint over a leftover patch in the photo editor using the same colour; otherwise, retake against a plainer background.
• Edges look blurry on a very large photo: the matte is computed at 512 × 512, so a 6000 px photo gets a softer edge than a 1500 px one. Crop to the subject, or lower Edge softness to 0.
• The first run fails with a download error: the model could not be fetched. Check your connection and try again; after one successful run it is cached.

Speed, batches and memory

Each photo is processed separately, one after another, because the runtime can only run one model pass at a time. A batch of 30 photos takes about 30 times as long as one. The free plan accepts up to 50 photos per batch and files up to 200 MB each; Pro raises that to 500 photos and 1 GB per file.

Memory is the main limit on phones. The model itself is small, but a full-size cut-out of a 48-megapixel photo needs several copies of that image in memory at once. If a phone browser reloads the page or stops responding, crop or resize the photo first, or process fewer photos at a time.

How this compares with upload-based removers

Most online background removers send your photo to a server, run a model there and send the result back. That has real advantages: servers can run larger models, which tend to handle hair, fur and busy scenes better than a model small enough to run in a browser. If you have a difficult product shot and do not mind uploading it, a server tool may give a cleaner edge.

The trade-off is privacy and control. Here the photo never leaves your device: there is no upload, no account and no copy kept on someone else's server, which matters for ID photos, photos of children and unreleased products. The costs are a one-time download of the model and speed that depends on your own device. With Pro, the installed app keeps working offline, so you can process photos with no connection at all.