Change a photo's background color

Picking the right plain color

The swatches cover the colors people ask for most, and each has a job.

• White gives the clean, bright field used for catalog shots and many listings. It shows edge flaws most, so check the outline.
• Off-white is softer and kinder in print, where pure white can look harsh next to cream paper.
• Light gray works well behind people wearing white, who would otherwise blend into a white field.
• Black makes bright objects and jewelry stand out, and suits dark website themes.

Matching a brand or a page

If the photo has to sit on a website or a slide with a set color, type the code into the HEX field so the background matches exactly instead of by eye. If you only have a logo or an existing image to go on, Brand colour extractor can read the codes from it first.

Pure white and off-white look almost the same on screen, so view the result next to the page or print where it will be used. A background that looks right on its own can feel too bright or too gray beside other images.

For an ID or passport photo, use Passport photo maker instead. It crops to the head size of each preset and offers the plain backgrounds those photos usually need, along with a print sheet.

Edges matter more on a flat color

Against a plain field, every leftover pixel of the old background shows. Turn on Mask view, which tints the kept area red, and look around hair, hands and the gaps between arms and body. Use Erase to take out leftovers and Restore to bring back anything clipped. Shrink/grow edge moves the whole border by up to 6 px, which is quicker than brushing when a thin rim runs all the way around.

Keep Edge softness low over a flat color, around 0 to 2 px. Higher values show as a soft glow where the old scene's colors mix into the new one.

Mask view is also the quickest way to check enclosed gaps, such as the space inside a mug handle or between fingers. Those should show the new color, not the old scene.

Person or Any subject

Person is the 25.9 MB default and is trained on people. Any subject, 88.1 MB, handles products, food, pets and objects. When the Person model finds nearly nothing, the editor tells you and suggests the switch. A mask made in any background tool is shared with the others for that version, so trying a gradient in Background changer afterwards needs no new run.

What it will not do

• Fine hair, glass, smoke and semi-transparent objects can come out imperfect against a flat color; the brushes help.
• The mask is computed on a copy of at most 4096 px on the long side and scaled up to the full photo.
• It does not crop or size the photo for ID documents; Passport photo maker does that.
• Shadows the subject cast on the old background are removed with it, so the subject can look like it floats.

Devices and downloads

The cutout uses the Person model, a 25.9 MB first-time download, or Any subject at 88.1 MB when you choose it. Both are Apache-2.0 licensed and cached in the browser afterwards. They run in a background worker, on WebGPU if your browser provides it and on WebAssembly if not. On WebAssembly, Any subject needs about 17 seconds a photo; with WebGPU, a second or two. Filling the color is ordinary drawing.

On-device AI: A small neural network that runs on this device after a one-time download. See what is stored on this device.

Step by step

1. Open a photo. Drop it in, paste it, or choose it from your files.
2. Run the cutout. Person for people, Any subject for everything else.
3. Choose a color. Tap a swatch, use the picker, or type a HEX code.
4. Fix and export. Check the edge in Mask view, correct it with the brushes, then save.

Questions about background colour