How to remove a background from a photo for free

Product listings, profile pictures, stickers, slides — most of the time you want the subject and not the room it was photographed in. You no longer need Photoshop, a pen tool or a paid API for this: a segmentation model small enough to run in a browser does it automatically.

Steps

1. Open Remove background and drop a JPG, PNG or WebP.
2. The first run downloads the model (about 45 MB) once; afterwards it is cached and each image takes a few seconds.
3. Download the transparent PNG.

What works well and what does not

• Great: people, pets, products on a table, cars, logos on a plain wall.
• Fine, may need a touch-up: flyaway hair, fur against a busy background.
• Hard for any tool: glass, smoke, transparent objects, subjects that share colours with the background.

Shoot against a plain, contrasting background whenever you can — it matters more than which tool you use.

Add a new background

A transparent PNG is the raw material. To put the subject on white for a marketplace listing, run the PNG through PNG to JPG and pick the background colour; for a coloured card, choose any colour there.

Privacy note

Most "free background remover" sites upload your photos to a server and keep them for a while. This one does not: the neural network (ISNet on ONNX Runtime) runs entirely on your device, which is why it also works offline once loaded.