Photo background changer: any color or your own photo

A photo background changer takes the subject out of one picture and puts something new behind it. Drop your photo into the box above and the AI separates the person, pet or product from its surroundings. Then pick the new background: white or black, a color from the picker, a two-color gradient, another photo or a generated scene. Choosing eligible Max re-cuts the subject photo at full size with our high-resolution model for one credit; your replacement background stays local. Download a free Preview up to 0.25 megapixels without an account, or use one image credit for Max above that size. Neither has a watermark.

Choosing a background color

A plain color is the quickest change and often the most finished-looking, because there is no lighting or perspective to match.

• Profile pictures. Pick a shade that stands apart from your hair and clothes: light or pastel behind dark hair, deeper behind blond or gray hair, and anything but the color of your top. Profile pictures are mostly seen at thumbnail size, where an even, calm color keeps attention on the face. To frame the result as a circle at the size Discord, X or LinkedIn asks for, use the PFP maker.
• Team and profile photos. White or light gray gives the plain look of a staff directory or a résumé headshot, and turns photos from different rooms into a matching set.
• Brand colors. Match your brand color with the picker, typing the exact hex code or RGB values where your browser's picker has a field for them, so every image in a series agrees. To take a color from a logo or another photo, the image color picker gives its hex code. Save those as PNG, since JPG compression can shift a flat color slightly.

Gradients and shadows

Choose Gradient to blend two colors behind the subject. Start with Dawn, Sky, Mint, Sand, Dusk or Studio, or set each color with its picker. Then adjust Direction: 0° goes left to right, 90° top to bottom, and the angles between give a diagonal blend. The gradient fills the finished frame, including any padding you add.

Enable Add a shadow and pick a style. Drop shadow puts a shadow shaped like the cutout behind it. Floor shadow flattens that shape into a soft band on the ground under the subject, as if it stood on a table. Choose the color, opacity, softness and position. Negative movement goes left or up; positive movement goes right or down. These controls use percentages of the image's longer side, so the effect scales with the download. Brush corrections also update the shadow's shape.

A floor shadow needs room below the subject. If the subject stands on the photo's bottom edge, add padding in Size; the panel says so when the shadow is out of view. Add padding too if a drop shadow reaches the frame edge.

Both are made from the cutout's outline. They don't infer the direction of a scene's light, its perspective or a three-dimensional contact shadow. A subtle shadow works well against a plain color or gradient.

Generated scenes

Click Scene to have a new background drawn for your subject. Pick Studio, Marble, Wood table, Concrete, Beach, Garden, City street or Living room, or type a short description such as "on a wooden dock by a lake" and select Make scene. An AI image model draws a new photo around the cutout where it sits in the frame, with light and contact shadows that suit it. Your subject is then placed back on top exactly as it was, so a face, a product label or fur is never redrawn. Another version makes a new take of the same scene.

The scene then works like a picture of your own, described below: zoom, move and blur it with the same controls. It is made for the current frame, so set trim, padding and aspect ratio in Size first; if you change them afterwards, the panel suggests making the scene again so the shadows line up. Scenes are free to make, up to 20 a day, and the download follows the usual free Preview and Max sizes.

Results vary from take to take. A scene can show the subject at an unusual scale or add props around it; try another version, or describe the surface it should rest on. Products standing on something, such as a table, a pedestal or sand, usually look the most natural. A portrait cut off at the waist suits a room or a street behind it.

Using your own photo as the background

Click Image and open any picture on your device, such as a view you photographed or a plain textured wall. This replacement background stays in your browser.

The picture starts centered and scaled to cover the whole frame, keeping its proportions. Anything outside the frame is cropped from the result. To change which part you see:

• Background zoom runs from 100 to 400% of that initial fit. Increase it to bring part of the scene closer.
• Move sideways and Move up / down position the background. A direction is unavailable when the picture fits the frame exactly in that direction; zoom in to make room.
• Move background lets you drag the picture directly with a mouse or touch. Your subject stays in place. Select Done below the preview when you finish, or press Escape.
• Background blur softens the new scene from 0 to 100%, leaving the cutout sharp. It starts off.
• Reset background returns to the centered 100% fit with blur off. Opening another background picture resets it too.

To soften the scene you started with, choose Blur instead. The background blur guide covers strength, brush corrections and the difference from a camera's portrait mode.

The placement sliders show how far you have moved within the available space. The picture's edges stay outside the frame, and the downloaded file uses the same placement as the preview. Choose the source with care:

• Match the orientation. A tall portrait over a wide landscape shows a narrow part of the scene. Move the background sideways to choose that part, or use a taller picture to keep more in view.
• Use enough pixels. A small background is enlarged to fill the frame and can look soft. Zooming uses an even smaller part of it, so inspect the downloaded file at its intended display size.

Matching light and color

A new scene looks believable when the subject could have been photographed there. Compare the two photos first:

• Direction. Notice which side of the face or product is brighter. If the subject is lit from the left and the sun in the scene comes from the right, the edit gives itself away.
• Warmth. Indoor lamps make skin look yellow-orange, while shade and cloudy daylight look bluish. Pair warm light with a warm scene and cool with cool.
• Brightness. A softly lit portrait on a scene in harsh midday sun never quite sits together.
• Camera height. A photo taken at eye level belongs on a scene shot at eye level; a background shot from high up puts the horizon in the wrong place and makes the subject seem to float.
• Focus. Behind a portrait, a slightly out-of-focus scene usually looks more natural than a pin-sharp one. Raise Background blur for a picture you add, or blur the original background instead.

A big jump in brightness between the old background and the new one makes any trace of the old color along the outline easy to spot, so inspect the edges after that kind of change; the walkthrough for fixing edges covers the cleanup.

What the changer does not do

• No relighting. The subject keeps its original lighting, also in a generated scene, which adds light and shadows around the subject but never changes it.
• Outline shadows only. The optional drop and floor shadows are made from the cutout's outline; they do not reconstruct a real shadow or a reflection.

For marketplace listings, the product photo background preset puts the product on pure white and trims and squares the photo. For photo tips by subject, see removing the background from people, pets and products.

Match the subject’s color

Open Effects to adjust the cutout’s brightness, contrast and saturation. The background photo or color stays unchanged. Reset subject color returns those three controls to neutral without clearing your brush corrections or background placement. These are color adjustments; they do not reconstruct lighting or missing detail.