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Not a magic wand — a brightness and saturation test
A naive white remover deletes every pixel whose value is above 250, which punches holes in white logos, white lettering and highlights. This tool tests two things at once: how bright the pixel is and how saturated it is. A pure white wall scores high on the first and zero on the second. A cream shirt scores high on the first but carries some saturation, so it survives.
Getting a clean cutout in three sliders
| Control | What it does | If it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| White threshold | How close to pure white a pixel must be to be removed. | Too low and grey edges survive — raise it. |
| Colour protection | How strongly coloured pixels are spared. | Too high and tinted backdrop survives — lower it. |
| Edge smoothness | Softens the cut so it does not look jagged. | Too high and the subject gets a halo. |
Best use cases
- Product photos on a white sweep. The single most common use.
- Logos and signatures. Scan on white paper, then strip the paper away.
- Documents and screenshots. Remove the page background before compositing.
- Scanned line art. Gets you a clean overlay for slides.
Do this first if your photo has a shadow. A backdrop with a visible grey
shadow will not key out cleanly, because those pixels are neither white nor transparent. Fix the shadow
first with the background shadow remover, then come back here.
The difference in edge quality is dramatic.
When this tool is not the right choice
If your background is a busy scene — a desk, a street, a room — colour keying cannot help, because there is no single colour to remove. That needs subject segmentation, which is a different class of tool. Be honest about the trade-off: this approach is free, instant and private, but it works on solid backgrounds by design.
FAQ
How do I remove a white background from an image for free?
Upload the image and raise the White threshold slider until the background turns into the
transparency checkerboard. Click Download to save a transparent PNG.
Why does the download have a black background?
You saved as JPG instead of PNG. JPG cannot store transparency, so transparent areas fill with black.
Always choose the PNG download.
The white background is still partly there — what do I do?
Raise the White threshold and lower Colour protection so off-white pixels count as
background too. If there is a shadow on the backdrop, correct it first with the
background shadow remover.
Will it delete white parts of my product?
Possibly, if the product is itself white and touches the frame edge. Colour protection is the
control that prevents this — raise it if your subject loses detail.
Does it work on a light grey or cream background?
Yes, up to a point. Raise the threshold until the tinted area is gone, and check that the subject does
not start losing edge pixels.
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