Remove Background

No. The AI model is downloaded to your browser and runs there, on your own device, so your photos are never sent anywhere. That is also why the first run takes a moment: the model file has to arrive before it can work.

That is the AI model itself, the part that has learned what a subject looks like. It is fetched once, the first time you press Cut out in Automatic, and kept in your browser’s storage, so later visits usually start without downloading it again (some browsers clear stored files after a while, and then it downloads once more). Remove a colour needs no model and downloads nothing.

Once the model has started, a photo takes about four seconds on a recent computer and longer on a phone, as the work runs on your device’s processor, every core it can use. Starting the model takes a few seconds more, once per visit, and the next photos in the same visit skip that.

Yes, in the browser, with nothing to install. On a phone or tablet, or a computer that reports 4 GB of memory or less, the model looks at your picture at 512 by 512 pixels instead of 1024 by 1024: it needs less than half the memory that way, which a phone gives a browser tab, and runs about four times faster. The download is 101 MB instead of 110 MB, and the cut-out is still refined at your photo’s full size. The page says when it works this way.

Glass, smoke, veils and other see-through things come out solid or vanish, because the model decides what belongs to the subject rather than how see-through it is. A subject in nearly the same colour as its background can lose part of an edge, and in a busy group shot it may keep only the most prominent person or object. Shadows usually go with the background. Compare shows the result next to the original, so you can judge it before you download.

The model sees your picture at 1024 by 1024 pixels. Its answer is then made full size along the edges in your own photo, so strands of hair and fur follow the picture rather than a blurry outline, and the old background’s colour is taken out of the soft edges so they don’t carry a fringe of it onto a new background.

Yes. Under Output, pick White, Black or any colour, and choose JPG for a small file or PNG to keep every pixel exactly. Transparent keeps only the subject, as a PNG or a smaller WebP.

When the background is one flat colour: a signature on paper, a logo on white, a product shot on a plain backdrop. It takes out that colour with a soft edge, keeps colours inside the subject as they are, and needs no model, so it is instant and exact. Keep enclosed areas leaves white inside a product or a letter alone.

Yes. Crop to the subject keeps only the box around what stays, which suits product photos, stickers and signatures. Leave it off to keep the original size, with the subject where it was.