How to Make an Image Background Transparent in Your Browser

Want a logo, product shot or portrait on a see-through background? You can do it in the free image editor in your browser, with no signup and no upload.

There's no single Remove background button. It takes a few steps: select, clean the edge, clear, then save in a format that keeps transparency.

1. Open your picture

Open the free image editor and open your image. PNG, JPG and WebP all work. Anything bigger than 8192 px on the long side is scaled down, and the editor tells you when it does.

2. Select the subject

Choose Select > Subject (AI). The editor finds the person or object and selects it.

The first time, your browser downloads the AI model and keeps it for next time. Your image stays on your device.

One honest limit: Subject (AI) looks at a copy of your image no bigger than 1280 px on the long side, then scales the selection back up. On a large photo, fine hair and fuzzy edges need the clean-up in step 4.

3. Plain background? Select that instead

If the background is flat white or one colour, the Magic Wand is often quicker. Click the background, and adjust Tolerance so it picks up the whole area. Turn Contiguous off if the colour appears in gaps, such as inside a letter.

You've now selected the background itself, so skip the Inverse part of step 5.

4. Clean the edge

Choose Select > Refine Edge.... The settings that help most:

• Smart Radius and the Refine Radius tool: paint over hair or fur to pick up fine strands.
• Decontaminate Colors: removes the old background's colour from the edge.
• Shift Edge, Feather and Smooth: tighten or soften the outline.

Check the edge with the on black and on white views. You can also tidy the selection by hand with any selection tool's Add and Subtract modes.

5. Remove the background

• Quick way: choose Select > Inverse, then Edit > Clear (or press Delete). The background becomes transparent.
• Undoable way: choose Layer > Layer Mask > Add Mask from Selection. The background is hidden, not deleted, so you can paint it back later.

Need a clean circle instead of an AI cut-out? Here's how to crop an image into a circle with Elliptical Marquee (hold Shift), then the same Inverse and Clear steps.

6. Trim the empty space

If the subject now has lots of empty space around it, choose Image > Trim transparent edges to crop to the subject.

7. Export as PNG or WebP

Choose File > Export as PNG or Export as WebP.... Both keep transparency.

Making a mood board? Cut-outs as transparent PNGs sit cleanly on a board. Here's how to make a mood board online for free.

Don't export JPG. MDN's image format guide says "JPEG does not support an alpha channel", and the editor's JPG export says so itself: "Transparent areas become white." PNG stores transparency per pixel. In the W3C PNG specification, zero alpha "means fully transparent".

Want cut-outs on a task board? Drop the PNG onto the free infinite canvas, or build a kanban board without signing up.

Want to hide part of a photo instead of cutting it out? Here's how to blur a face or number plate.

Want the subject in a circle with transparent corners? See crop an image into a circle and export PNG.

Where your image goes

Your image never leaves your device. The AI model downloads once from Hugging Face, and the code that runs it comes from jsDelivr. The site also uses Google Analytics.

Next step

Open the free image editor, choose Select > Subject (AI), then Inverse and Clear, and export a PNG. It's free, with no signup.