How hard is it to completely remove the background from a photo? For the average person, the answer is "pretty damn hard." Using programs like Photoshop or GIMP is out of the question unless you're a professional. Trying to do it in professional photo editors will be useless for most people and a waste of time.
But there are also online services available to the mass user, but most of them are paid. There are only a few free services that even a child can handle. We will talk about them now!
Remove.bg
Remove.bg — is a free online service designed to automatically remove the background from photos. You only need to upload the image to the site, and the program will do the rest. The process is fully automated. Remove.bg processes images quite quickly. However, the processing time depends on the file size. The maximum size of the uploaded file is 8 MB.
The program will try to recognize a person so that he or she remains in the picture. Everything else is considered background and is subject to removal. People should be in the foreground. If they are located far away, the system may not recognize them.
remove.bg has an extension for Photoshop. After installing it, a new menu item will appear in the editor: Window → Extensions → Remove Background. You can remove the background in Photoshop with one click. When you click this button, the image will be processed through the remove.bg API. Therefore, you need an Internet connection and an API key (which can be found in the account settings on the site). It makes no difference whether you are editing product photos or portraits - even complex edges, such as hair, are processed well.
Among other things, a separate program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. With its help, you can automatically remove the background from selected images in bulk. Just drag them into the desktop program window. You can even drag entire folders from anywhere on your computer and determine yourself where to save images without a background in the settings. If necessary, you can select a background color that will be applied to all images.
Photoshop Online
Photoshop Express is a lightweight online version of Photoshop with basic photo editing features. It recently added a background blur feature that can remove the background of any image with objects in the foreground. The final photo retains its original resolution, which is pretty cool.
To remove the background from a photo and keep its high resolution, follow these steps: at this link on Adobe Photoshop Express. After uploading the photo, you will need to log in to your Adobe account – you can create one for free or log in via your Google or Apple account. After authorization, the uploaded photo will open in the editor, on the side of which there is a large button for removing the background – click it and the service will do everything itself.
After that, you can download the finished file by clicking the Download button – a download dialog box will open, in which you can select the image format. We recommend saving in PNG format.
PhotoRoom
PhotoRoom – is a free app for Android. It is powered by AI and works flawlessly with backgrounds – just one click is enough. After you remove the background from a photo or product image, the app will offer several backgrounds to replace it, including paid ones. In addition, there is the option replace objects in the foreground photos – also in one click.
PhotoRoom is designed to work with images for online stores. Simply select a photo, press one button, and a presentable product photo is ready. The application weighs little and works on anything. In the free version, however, a small watermark will remain at the bottom of the photo - fortunately, cropping it is not difficult.
Using PhotoRoom is very simple: download it from here, open it and import the photo you need. The app also has a few test images, with which you can check how it copes with backgrounds.
Unscreen
Unscreen – is an online service where you can remove the background of GIF images, and for an additional fee – even videos. At the same time, you can work with short videos (up to 5 seconds, and up to 10 seconds when creating a free account) and GIFs for free.
Since GIFs are often less than 5 seconds long, you can remove the background without creating an account – just go to the site, select the Free Clips option, upload a file or choose a GIF from GIPHY’s database. The service also supports MP4, WebM, OGG and MOV formats. You can even just paste the URL of the video you want.
The final file can be downloaded in GIF, APNG or video format, and there is also the option to selectively download individual frames. The only drawback is the notorious watermarks in the lower right corner, which are especially noticeable when watching the video.
Background Burner
Background Burner — is a web service that allows you to quickly remove the background from any image. After you upload the file to the site, it will try to remove the background from your image on its own.
After 30 seconds, Background Burner will show the result of its work. Usually, 3-4 options are provided to choose from.
If the photo you uploaded is not too complex, one of the options will most likely be suitable. If so, simply click the Select button and download it to your computer. If none of the options are to your liking, then select a more suitable option and make some minor adjustments to it until it is perfect.
To do this, click the Touch up button and use the green brush to mark the parts you want to keep and the red brush to mark the parts you want to erase. There are three brush sizes available and the ability to zoom in to work on the smallest details.
Once the image is ready, you can download it as a JPG with a white background, or as a PNG with transparency. The latter will be useful if you want to place it on another picture.
If desired, you can place the cropped fragment directly on the service into the already built-in images from 7 thematic categories (romantic, travel, texture and others) or upload your own.
Clipping Magic
If you are not familiar with Adobe Photoshop or are looking for a less complex tool, you can use Clipping Magic, which removes the background in just a few clicks. Another advantage is that you don't need to register to get the first result. All you need to do is upload the file to the service and select the main object and background.
Instead of spending several minutes trying to carefully outline your object to separate it from the background, you can simply mark two areas (the desired and the unwanted) and the algorithm will take care of the rest. If the automatic selection of the algorithm is not accurate enough, you can correct the image yourself.
All work is done with two color brushes - green and red. The first is applied to the object, the second - to the background. Moreover, a line designation is enough - the system will recognize and do everything else itself. Moreover, it will do it quite accurately - it is rarely necessary to repeat this operation for a better result. All operations take no more than one minute.
Now that your photo is ready and all the background is removed, do not click the download button as it will not work unless you are a paid user. Instead, use any screenshot program and take a screenshot of your edited image and save it under a desired name for further editing.
It's worth noting that you can upload and edit as many photos as you want, but you'll need to pay $4 to download the resulting PNG file, or you can just take a screenshot.
However, you shouldn't think that Clipping Magic is a magic wand that will improve even a low-quality photo to an acceptable state. The less sharp the image was, the more it was darkened or overexposed, the higher the risk of getting a bad result. The same can happen if it was too mottled.
Make Image Transparent
There is also a completely free service Make Image Transparent, but it is covered in advertising. We counted 5 advertising blocks! But despite this, it copes with its task perfectly.
The screenshot above shows that it was enough to make just 2 rough strokes to get the desired result. The resulting image can be downloaded immediately in PNG format, without the need to register or pay anything.
You can use the ZOOM-IN or ZOOM-OUT button to make the image larger or smaller for better marking. If you mistakenly blur something wrong, it can be easily removed using the ERASER or UNDO button.
Conclusions
First of all, Background Burner is completely free, and according to its developers, it will remain so. It also tries to do most of the heavy lifting, sometimes it does it well, sometimes not so much. This is especially useful for photos that are not very complex, and it can save you a lot of time if you have several dozen photos to process.
In Clipping Magic you always need to show which part is the subject and which is the background. The service currently costs $4 if you want to download the result of your work. For $8 you can do bulk deletion, i.e. you can upload 50 files at once for processing and then download the processed ones in a batch.
If you prefer to work with programs rather than online services, you can try the following programs for Mac OS - these are Super PhotoCut, for Android and iPhone — AlphaBlur Image Effects or Adobe Photoshop Mix.