Remove a colour from an image

What removing a colour is for

Sometimes a particular colour has to go: the flat background behind a logo, the white around a scanned signature, the green screen behind a person, a distracting tint on a product shot. The tool replaces the colour you pick with transparency, so the result drops onto any background. You download a PNG, which can carry transparency.

How to use it

Click straight into the image on the colour you want gone and it joins the list. You can add several, which helps when a background has more than one shade. You can also enter a colour by hand with the colour picker. The tolerance slider decides how close a shade still counts: for a flat single-colour background a small value is enough, for a photo with gradients turn it up. Softening the edges smooths the border of the cut-out so it does not look jagged.

The chequerboard in the preview shows where the image is transparent. The whole conversion runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded to a server.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the result a PNG and not a JPG?

JPG cannot do transparency; it would save white or black in its place. PNG keeps it, which is why the output is always in that format.

It ate part of my object. What now?

Lower the tolerance. A high value also clears shades close to the chosen colour that belong to the object. If a fringe is left instead, raise the tolerance a little or click the fringe colour to add it too.

Does it handle a complex background, like a landscape photo?

The tool works with colours, not shapes. On flat single-colour areas it is excellent; on a busy background with many colours it runs out of road. To cut an object out of a complicated scene, the background removal tool suits better.