Background eraser for what automatic removal got wrong

Automatic background removal is a guess about what the subject is. On a portrait it is usually a good one. On a flat illustration, a screenshot, a scanned page, a product shot where the product is the same colour as the table, or a picture with two things in it and you want only one, the guess is wrong in ways no slider fixes. This page starts from the other end: you say what goes.

The magic wand does most of the work on anything with flat areas. Click the background and the connected region of that colour is gone; raise the tolerance if a soft gradient is left, lower it if the wand bites into the subject. The brushes finish the edges, with hardness for a soft rim and smart edges for hair and fur. A loupe in the corner of the picture shows the pixels under the brush, magnified.

A stroke here is not a set of changed pixels; it is a recorded action — where the brush went, how big it was, how hard, whether smart edges were on. The mask is always a replay of that list. That is why undo is exact rather than approximate, and why the file you save, at the photograph’s full size, matches the preview you brushed on a smaller copy.

1. The wand works on colour, not on meaning. A subject the same colour as the wall behind it has to be separated with the brush.
2. Very fine hair is slow by hand. For portraits, let the model find the subject first and use the brushes only to correct it.
3. Transparency in glass or smoke cannot be painted back in with an erase brush; the result is either kept or removed.

How is this different from the background remover?

The remover starts by running a model and then lets you correct it. The eraser starts with nothing automatic at all: the brushes and the magic wand are open, and nothing is downloaded. It is the page for illustrations, screenshots, printed logos and the photos where the model guessed wrong. If you want the subject found for you after all, one button offers the model with its size first.

What does the magic wand do?

Click a colour and every connected pixel close to it is taken out, as far as the tolerance allows. Switch on 'Every pixel of that colour' and it takes that colour everywhere in the picture, holes included. Shift-click puts a region back into the subject. Every click is one step in the history, so undo is exact.

What do hardness and smart edges change?

Hardness is how sharp the rim of the brush is: at 100% the disc cuts cleanly, lower values fade the outer part so an erased edge blends. Smart edges limits the brush to pixels close in colour to the one under its centre, which is how a stroke along hair takes the background and leaves the strands.

Is the saved file full size?

Yes. You brush on a working copy so the brush keeps up, and every stroke and wand click is recorded and replayed on the full-size picture when you save. The PNG is the size you dropped, or trimmed to the subject with padding if you ask for that.

Does anything leave my computer?

No. The picture is read and edited in this page. Unless you press 'Find the subject for me', not even a model is downloaded.

• Remove backgroundThe background off any picture, as a full-size transparent PNG.
• Transparent backgroundA PNG with a real alpha channel, for logos, products and stickers.
• Remove white backgroundThe white box around a logo gone, the white inside it kept. No model.
• Logo backgroundA flat background out with the holes in the letters kept, then icon, avatar and one-colour sizes.