QuickCut

Remove white background from an image

For clip art, scans, product shots on white seamless and anything with a flat background. Exact maths, no AI guesswork, no white fringe.

Runs in your browser with plain maths, no upload and no AI needed. Works best on flat, even backgrounds.

The halo problem, and the fix

Edges in any digital image are anti-aliased: to look smooth, the pixels between a black line and white paper are shades of grey. Those grey pixels are really “40% ink, 60% paper”.

Delete everything that’s nearly white and the grey pixels stay fully opaque. On a dark background they show up as a light outline. Delete more aggressively and the outline goes, but so does the smooth edge.

Colour-to-alpha does the maths the other way round: for every pixel it works out how much white it contains, removes exactly that much, and keeps the rest as partly transparent ink. The result looks right on any background.

Where the white halo comes from

Ten pixels across the edge of a black logo. The grey ones in the middle are part ink, part paper. Put the result on a dark background and see what happens to them.

Original scan
Cut out, placed on dark blue

Each grey pixel becomes black ink at partial opacity, so the edge stays smooth on any background.

Questions people ask

How do I remove a white background from an image?

Drop the image above. The tool detects the background colour from the edges (normally white), makes it transparent and keeps the soft edges. Adjust Tolerance if a faint tint remains, then download a PNG.

Why not just use the magic wand?

A magic wand keeps or deletes whole pixels. The grey pixels on an anti-aliased edge are part artwork, part white, so they either survive as a pale halo or get deleted and leave jagged edges. Colour-to-alpha turns them into partly transparent artwork instead.

It removed white inside my image too. How do I stop that?

Tick “Keep enclosed areas”. Only white connected to the image border is removed, so the white inside letters, eyes or a logo stays.

Does this work on photos?

Only if the background is a clean, evenly lit white, such as a studio product shot. For a photo against a wall, room or street, use the AI background remover on the home page.

Can I remove a black or coloured background instead?

Yes. Use “Pick from image” and tap the background, or set any colour in the picker. The same colour-to-alpha maths applies.

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