How to remove a background in Affinity

To remove a background in Affinity, open the image, then on the top menu select Pixel, then Remove Background. You can also select Remove Background in the Canva AI Studio. The cutout takes one step and has no settings. Affinity itself is free, but this is a Canva AI feature: it needs a Canva premium plan, and Canva processes the image online. remove.bg recommends Affinity to users of its Photoshop plugin, which stops on December 1, 2026.

Remove a background with Canva AI

1. Open the image in Affinity and select its layer. If it isn't an image or pixel layer, Affinity rasterizes it for you.
2. If you want to keep the original with its background, duplicate the layer. Affinity makes the cutout directly on the pixel layer.
3. On the top menu, select Pixel, then Remove Background. Or switch to the Canva AI Studio from the top toolbar and select Remove Background there.
4. Check the edges. Affinity's help says the tool handles simple and complex images, but hair, fur and soft edges deserve a close look on a dark and a light color.

Affinity by Canva combines what Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Publisher 2 did as separate apps, so the same steps apply whichever kind of document you work in. Photo editing lives in the Pixel studio.

Refine the edge with a mask

Remove Background has no settings, but the result can be edited afterwards with Affinity's ordinary layers and masks. Affinity's help calls this the equivalent of the restore-paint workflow in the Canva web app:

1. On the Layers panel, select the layer and click Mask Layer.
2. Select the mask layer.
3. To hide more, paint on the mask with the Erase Brush Tool, or the Paint Brush Tool set to black.
4. To show hidden areas again, paint with the Paint Brush Tool set to white.

The brush's size, opacity, flow and hardness sit on the context toolbar. A soft brush gives a softer edge, which suits hair and fur better than a hard one.

Select Subject and on-device selection

Two other tools make a selection instead of removing pixels, which keeps the original layer intact:

• Select Subject finds the main subject and selects it. Select it in the Canva AI Studio, or on the top menu select Pixel, then Pixel Selection, then From Layer Subject. Then click Mask Layer: with a selection in place, the new mask hides everything outside it.
• The Object Selection Tool selects an object you drag over. It runs on your computer with a segmentation model you download first, under Settings, then Machine Learning Models, so the image doesn't leave your machine.

Affinity's help ties both to a Canva premium plan. Select Subject, like Remove Background, doesn't count toward the monthly AI limit, and tools that use a downloaded model have unlimited use on premium plans.

Export a transparent PNG

1. On the File menu, select Export, then Export.
2. On the left of the dialog, choose a PNG preset.
3. Under Area, choose Whole document, or Selection Only to export the selected layer without the other layers in that area.
4. Check that Matte is not set. It sets a background color for the exported image, which would fill the transparent areas.
5. Click Export, name the file and save it.

The Quick Export panel does the same with a saved preset. JPG cannot store transparency, so always choose PNG, or WebP, for a cutout.

If you are replacing the remove.bg plugin

remove.bg's FAQ says its Photoshop plugin won't be available after December 1, 2026, and points to Affinity instead, which "has remove.bg's background removal technology built directly into its editor". It also notes the feature runs on Canva AI and needs a Canva Pro subscription. Our remove.bg checklist covers credits, plans and API code before that date.

If you would rather stay in Photoshop, it has its own one-click Remove Background; the Photoshop guide shows where it is in current versions.

Without a Canva premium plan

Affinity's regular selection tools and masks are part of the free app, and they can cut out a subject by hand, which takes time on hair or fur. For a quick automatic cutout without a Canva plan:

1. Open the picture in the background remover on this site. It runs in your browser; a preview PNG up to 0.25 megapixels is free without signup or a watermark, and larger Max downloads use one credit.
2. Check the edges with the before/after slider and fix leftovers with the erase and restore brushes. Soft, partly transparent edges are kept.
3. Download the PNG. In Affinity, on the File menu select Place, choose the file, click Open, then click on the page. You can also drag the file onto the page.

For a batch of product shots, the bulk background remover processes up to 50 images and downloads them as a ZIP. Affinity's Place command accepts several files at once.