Remove a white background from an image

Removing a white background looks like a one-line job — make every white pixel transparent — and done that way it leaves two problems: the white inside the design goes too, and a pale fringe stays around every edge. This page handles both.

Outside only removes the background colour where it touches the border of the picture and spreads inward only through pixels of that colour, so white enclosed by the design is left alone. Along the edge, where a pixel is partly logo and partly white, the white is calculated out of the pixel and its transparency set to match, so the logo keeps its own colour right to the edge.

1. Photographs. A photographed background is never one colour, even a white wall; use the background remover for photos.
2. Logos whose outer shape is white. If the design itself touches the border in white, it will be read as background there.

Why not just use the background remover?

Because for a flat background there is nothing to guess. A colour key knows exactly which pixels are background, keeps enclosed white areas such as the inside of an O, and is instant with no model to download. The model is for photographs.

The white inside my logo disappeared too.

Switch to Outside only. It removes the background colour only where it connects to the edge of the image, so enclosed white shapes are kept.

There is still a thin white line around the edge.

Raise the tolerance a little. Edge pixels are a blend of the logo colour and the white; a higher tolerance treats more of that blend as background, and the page takes the white back out of what is kept.

Does it work on a background that is not white?

Yes. It uses the most common colour along the border of the picture, whatever that colour is, and shows you which one it picked.

• Transparent backgroundA PNG with a real alpha channel, for logos, products and stickers.
• Signature backgroundPaper out, ink kept, cropped close as a transparent PNG. No model.
• Remove backgroundThe background off any picture, as a full-size transparent PNG.
• Background colourAny flat colour behind the subject, down to an exact hex value.