Background Remover
Cut out people from photos automatically, then keep a transparent background or switch to white, blue or any colour. Download PNG or JPG. Made for portraits, selfies and profile pictures.
Drop a photo of a person
The background is removed on this device. Best for portraits, selfies and ID photos.
How to use Background Remover
Simple steps to get your task done in seconds
Add a photo
Drop a photo of a person.
Pick a background
Keep it transparent or choose white, blue or any colour.
Download
Save as PNG (transparent) or JPG.
How In-Browser AI Background Removal Works
ZapPebble extracts people and portrait subjects from photos using Google's open-source MediaPipe Selfie Segmentation deep learning model executed entirely in WebAssembly on your device. The model assets are self-hosted directly from our domain (under /mediapipe), ensuring that your personal portraits, family photos, and ID pictures are processed on your local GPU/CPU with zero bytes uploaded to external machine learning cloud APIs.
| Specification | Supported Value | Implementation Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Segmentation Model | MediaPipe Selfie Segmentation (Apache-2.0) | Self-hosted WebAssembly neural network trained specifically on human portraits. |
| Replacement Backgrounds | Transparent, Solid Colors, Custom HEX | Includes White, Light Blue, Light Grey, Cream, Red, Blue, Black, and color picker. |
| Comparison Feature | Hold-to-Compare Toggle | Press and hold the eye button to inspect edge sharpness against the original photo. |
| Export Formats | PNG (Transparent) or JPEG | Transparent exports retain 8-bit alpha channel for clean graphics compositing. |
Practical Example: Creating a Clean Profile Photo for LinkedIn
You took a headshot in your living room with a distracting background (bookshelf, window glare). You need a clean, executive look with a solid light-grey or light-blue backdrop for your professional avatar.
- MediaPipe generates an accurate segmentation mask separating hair strands and shoulders from the wall.
- The living room background is cleanly replaced with the chosen studio backdrop color.
- Clicking "Download Image" saves the photo ready for your profile upload.
Model Training Focus & Known Limitations
The neural network is specifically trained to recognize human anatomy: faces, shoulders, and full-body silhouettes. It is not intended for non-human objects such as furniture, cars, or household pets.
Photos where clothing color blends closely into the wall (e.g. black shirt against a black wall) may have softer edge detection. High-contrast lighting produces the sharpest cutouts.
Unlike commercial AI background tools that store uploaded faces in cloud training datasets, ZapPebble executes the neural network entirely in client WebAssembly. Your face and photos are never uploaded or retained.
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