How to Remove the Background from an Image

To remove the background from an image, upload a photo with a clear subject to a background remover, let it cut out the subject, and download the result as a transparent PNG. Our background remover keeps hair and fine edges soft and returns the PNG at your original size. It's a pro tool, and you can try it with a free account on images up to 2 megapixels.

What a background remover does

It finds the main subject of the photo (a person, a pet, a product, a car) and makes everything else transparent. You get a PNG, because PNG is the common image format that can hold transparency; a JPG can't. You can then place the cut-out on a white background for a marketplace listing, a brand colour for a social post, or a new scene in a slide or poster.

Doing this by hand with a selection tool takes a long time around hair, fur and see-through edges. The background remover handles those with soft edges, so the cut-out blends onto whatever you put behind it.

Step by step

1. Open the background remover and sign in.
2. Under Choose a file, pick a JPG, PNG or WebP image. Pro takes images up to 30 MB and 50 megapixels.
3. Press Start and wait while the subject is cut out; it usually takes about a minute.
4. Press Download result to save your transparent PNG. It's available for 1 hour.

There are no settings to fiddle with: the tool decides what the subject is. That's why the photo you start with matters most.

Trying it free: the 2-megapixel limit

The background remover is a pro tool. A free account can try it on images up to 2 megapixels, and you get 5 free tries a day across all our pro tools.

Two megapixels is about 1,600 × 1,200 pixels. A modern phone photo is usually 12 megapixels or more (around 4,000 × 3,000), so it's too big for a free try as it is. Shrink it first:

1. Open the free image resizer, which runs on your device without uploading anything.
2. Set the width to 1600 px for a landscape photo or 1200 px for a portrait one, with the aspect ratio locked.
3. Download it, then use that smaller copy in the background remover.

For a profile picture, a product shot for a listing or a slide, 1,600 pixels wide is plenty. For print or large banners, Pro processes the full-resolution original.

Photos that cut out cleanly

The result depends on how easy it is to tell the subject from the background. You'll get the cleanest edges when:

• There's one obvious subject. A single person, pet or product in the middle of the frame works best. A crowd or a busy street scene with no clear subject is much harder.
• The subject stands out from the background. A dark jacket against a pale wall is easy. A beige dog on a beige sofa is harder.
• The subject is in focus and fully in frame. Blurred edges and cut-off limbs give rougher outlines.
• The light is even. Harsh shadows on the background can be mistaken for part of the subject.

If the photo has a lot of empty space, crop it around the subject first with the free image cropper. The subject then fills more of the frame, which also helps you stay under the 2-megapixel free limit.

What to do with the transparent PNG

• White background for a listing. Many marketplaces prefer products on plain white. Place the PNG on a white canvas in any editor, or convert it with the free PNG to JPG converter, which fills transparent areas with white and makes a smaller file.
• Profile photos. Drop the cut-out onto a solid colour that matches your brand.
• Slides and documents. PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides and Word all keep PNG transparency, so the subject sits directly on your slide.
• Stickers and graphics. A transparent PNG layers neatly over other images.

A full-size transparent PNG can be large, easily many megabytes for a phone-size photo. If it's too heavy to upload somewhere, resize it smaller, or convert to JPG if you don't need the transparency.

Your images and privacy

The background remover runs on our servers, so your image is uploaded. It's deleted as soon as it's processed. Your PNG is available to download for 1 hour, then it's deleted too. Your file is uploaded only to produce the result you asked for.

Before you upload, it's worth thinking about what's in the picture. Don't use it on passport or visa photos: official photo rules generally don't allow digitally changed backgrounds, so retake the photo against a plain light wall instead. For other ID and exam photos, check the form's own rules.

Related guides

• Turning a JPG into a PNG doesn't make anything transparent by itself; our guide on converting JPG to PNG explains why.
• If you need a bigger version of a small cut-out, see how to upscale a low-resolution image.

Try it now

Pick a photo with a clear subject, shrink it to about 1,600 pixels wide if it's from a phone, and try the background remover with a free account.