Remove the background from a photo
Drop a photo and the subject gets cut out onto a transparent background, ready to drop into a listing, a slide, or a new scene. The usual way to do this sends your photo to someone else's server first. This one downloads a small model to your device instead, once, and never sends the photo anywhere.
Want the best result? Read How to remove the background from a photo.
Why the first use is a download, not instant
Every other tool on this site works the moment the page loads, because the code needed is a few kilobytes. Finding the subject in a photo takes a real machine learning model, and that model is roughly 80 megabytes. There's no way around that size and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
So the first photo you cut out on a given visit downloads that model once. Your browser caches it after that, so the second cutout, and every one after, starts instantly with no further download, on this device, until you clear site data.
How the cutout works
The model looks at the photo and estimates, pixel by pixel, how much each one belongs to the main subject rather than the background. That estimate becomes a mask, and the mask is used to make everything outside the subject transparent.
It runs entirely as WebAssembly in your browser tab. No proprietary cloud API, no third-party service seeing your photo, just a model file and your device's own processor doing the math.
PNG or WebP, never JPG
The whole point of this tool is a transparent background, and JPG has no way to store transparency, it's simply not part of the format. Offering it as an output choice here would mean handing back a file that silently lost the one thing you asked for.
PNG and WebP both support an alpha channel, so those are the only two formats offered. PNG is the safer default if you're not sure where the cutout is going next.
Nothing is uploaded
Once the model has downloaded, the rest of the process never touches a server. Your photo is decoded, run through the model, and composited into a transparent image, all in the same browser tab.
You can check this yourself: after the model finishes downloading once, disconnect from the internet and cut out another photo. It still works, because everything the tool needs is already on your device.
When you'd use this
Selling something online and want the product on a plain background instead of your kitchen table. Building a slide deck and need a headshot without the office wall behind it. Making a logo or sticker from a photo where only the subject should show. Dropping a product shot onto a website where the page background needs to show through.
Quick questions
Why does this tool need to download something first?
Finding the subject in a photo takes a real machine learning model, and that model is around 80 megabytes. It downloads once and your browser caches it, so later cutouts start instantly.
Is my photo uploaded to cut out the background?
No. Only the model downloads, from this site, not your photo. The photo itself is processed on your device and never sent anywhere.
Why can't I export as JPG?
JPG cannot store transparency at all. Exporting to it would silently throw away the transparent background this tool exists to create, so only PNG and WebP are offered.
Does it work on any subject, or only people?
Any clear foreground subject, people, products, animals, objects. Results are best when the subject is reasonably distinct from the background.
Will it work offline after the first use?
Yes. Once the model has downloaded once on this device, disconnecting from the internet and cutting out another photo still works.
Can I cut out several photos in one visit?
Yes. The model only downloads once per visit, so every photo after the first starts immediately.
Converters
Start here if your files still need converting before you use this tool.