Remove the background from a photo

1. Choose what's in the photo

   Person or animal (portraits, profile pictures, CVs, your dog or cat) or an object (products to sell, dishes, cars).

2. Choose the photo

   From your phone or computer, iPhone HEIC too. The first time, the browser downloads the tool (about 43 MB), then it stays in the browser and is ready straight away.

3. Your device does the cut-out

   An open-source artificial intelligence model (BiRefNet) runs inside the browser: first the shape of the subject, then (straight away with the graphics card, or with the “Maximum quality” button) hair and fine details. Finally I refine the edges at the photo's full resolution, removing halos from the old background.

4. Download the PNG

   Transparent for montages and graphics, white for e-commerce and documents, or whatever colour you like for social media.

No. The cut-out happens in your browser, on your phone or computer. The photo isn't sent to any server, not even mine. I don't save anything. Visit statistics (Google Analytics) only start if you accept them in the cookie banner.

The browser downloads the engine and the model: about 43 MB for people and animals, the same again for objects. It's a high-quality model, that's why it's heavy. Then they stay in the browser and next time it starts straight away. If you're on your phone, Wi-Fi is better.

Yes, with up-to-date Chrome, Safari or Firefox. The cut-out arrives in a few seconds. If the phone's graphics card is available to the browser (WebGPU) it refines hair and fine details straight away too; if not you can ask for it with the “Maximum quality” button, which on a phone takes from half a minute to a minute and a half. The PNG comes out at the photo's resolution, up to 16 megapixels (larger photos I reduce just as much as needed).

Try the other mode and pick the better result: “Person or animal” is softer on hair and fur; “An object” is sharper on products, bottles, cars and objects with holes. Also try “Maximum quality” for fine details. A sharp photo with the subject standing out from the background helps.

No: free, no sign-up, no maximum number of photos and no watermark. The PNG is full resolution, like the one from paid tools.

Yes: the photo is yours and so is the result. Use it for your online shop, social media, menu or CV. Just make sure you have the rights to the original photo.

BiRefNet (lite version, MIT licence): the “matting” variant for people and animals, the general one for objects. It runs with ONNX Runtime Web (MIT). If the device can't cope, I fall back to MODNet and U²-Net (Apache 2.0). HEIC photos I open with libheif (LGPL).

All the files are on my site, no external services. Full licences.