Remove the background from any portrait

Why a dedicated portrait tool?

The model behind BgRemove (MediaPipe Selfie Segmenter) was trained on a massive dataset of people — selfies, professional headshots, group photos, fitness shots. It cuts portraits with a precision that's noticeably better than general-purpose object segmentation models. Hair detail, jawline edges, glasses, and even partial body crops all hold up well.

What people use it for

• LinkedIn headshots. Drop a phone selfie taken against any backdrop and put it on a clean white or company-coloured background.
• Slack, Discord, Notion avatars. Sharp circular avatars need clean cutouts to look professional.
• Dating app profiles. Replace a busy background with something neutral, or drop your cutout into a styled scene.
• Speaker bios and team pages. Consistent transparent-PNG headshots make a team page look intentional.
• ID and passport photos. Most countries require a specific background colour — start with a transparent PNG and add the right colour in a design tool.

Tips for the cleanest portrait cutout

1. Light from the front. Soft, frontal light avoids harsh shadows on the face and hair, which are the two areas the model has to work hardest on.
2. Pick a contrasting background. Dark hair against a white wall, light hair against a dark wall. The model uses tonal contrast to find the edge.
3. Crop above the shoulders. A standard headshot crop gives the model a familiar shape. Full-body and group shots still work but quality is more variable.
4. Avoid hands near the face. The model sometimes mistakes a cheek-resting hand for the background. If possible, keep hands clearly separated or out of frame.
5. Glasses are fine. The model handles eyewear well. Sunglasses occasionally bleed into the cutout — use the before/after slider to check.

Privacy: why this matters for portraits

A portrait is a piece of personal data. Cloud BG removers store your photos for some retention window (Remove.bg says 1 hour; others don't specify). For an internal team headshot or a family portrait, you probably don't want that — even at low risk.

BgRemove processes your photo entirely in your browser. There is no upload step. We're not promising to delete your photos because we never receive them in the first place. Open DevTools, watch the Network tab while you upload — you'll see no outgoing image data.

After the cutout

For social platforms, drop the transparent PNG into the image resizer with a one-tap preset for the right dimensions (Instagram square, LinkedIn banner, X profile). For ID and passport photos, open the PNG in any design tool, add the required background colour as a layer underneath, and export.