How to Remove a Background in Photoshop

Before you start

Photoshop is sold only as a Creative Cloud subscription, paid monthly or yearly. On Adobe's US plans page in September 2026 the Photoshop plan was US$22.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly, or US$263.88 paid up front for the year, with 25 monthly generative credits. There is a 7-day free trial; it asks for billing details, and you can cancel up to 14 days after it ends for a full refund.

Adobe is also testing a new AI Assisted Editor, announced in beta on 27 August 2026, which has its own Remove Background button. The steps below are for the classic interface, which Adobe now calls the Pro Editor. You can switch between the two at any time, but moving a layered document into the AI Assisted Editor flattens it, so work on a copy.

How to remove the background in Photoshop with one click

1. Open the photo and unlock the layer

Open the image and look at the Layers panel. A photo usually opens as a locked Background layer, so click the lock to turn it into a normal layer first. Adobe's own instructions start with this step.

2. Click Remove Background

In the Properties panel, find Quick Actions and click Remove Background. The same button appears in the Contextual Task Bar, the floating bar that follows your selection and is on by default. If you cannot see it, turn it on under Window → Contextual Task Bar.

3. Check the mask and touch it up

Photoshop runs Select Subject to find the main foreground subject, then hides the rest with a layer mask instead of erasing it. Paint on the mask with a white brush to bring back anything it hid, or a black brush to hide what it missed. For hair and fur, Adobe recommends the Refine Edge Brush tool.

Because the result is a mask, nothing is lost. Rather than delete background in Photoshop pixel by pixel, you can always paint parts back in later.

Cut out an image in Photoshop by hand

When the one-click result is not good enough, build the selection yourself:

• Select Subject. Pick the Quick Selection or Magic Wand tool and click Select Subject in the Options bar, or use the button in the Contextual Task Bar. It is the same detection as the quick action, but it stops at a selection so you can adjust it.
• Object Selection tool. Use it when the photo has several possible subjects and you want just one. Draw a rectangle or a loose lasso around it, or turn on Object Finder, hover to see a coloured overlay on each object it found, and click the one you want.
• Select and Mask. Open it from the Select menu or the Select and Mask button in the Options bar of any selection tool. For hair, click Refine Hair; the Object Aware refine mode is the one Adobe describes as best for hair and fur. Smooth, Feather, Contrast and Shift Edge adjust the whole outline, and the Refine Edge Brush fixes small areas.

Finish in Select and Mask by setting Output To to New layer with layer mask. With any other selection, click Add layer mask at the bottom of the Layers panel. On a mask, white shows the layer and black hides it.

Saving a Photoshop transparent background

Transparency survives only in formats that support it. PNG does; JPG does not, so a JPG export fills the empty area with a solid colour. Adobe's help pages describe three ways to get a PNG out:

Keep the layered PSD as well. Saving as PNG flattens the layers, and the mask is what lets you fix the edge later.

Removing or adding a white background in Photoshop

A product shot on a white sweep tends to be an easy case for the quick action, since Adobe notes that high-contrast images give the best results. Run Remove Background, check the mask along light edges such as white packaging, and export a PNG as above.

To put a cutout onto white instead, add a new layer underneath the masked layer and fill it with white. The mask stays editable, so you can still refine the edge after seeing it against the new colour.

Removing a background without a Photoshop subscription

For a single photo, a full Creative Cloud plan is a lot to pay for. CutoutBG AI runs in the browser: upload a JPG, PNG or WebP image, keep the transparent output or pick white, and download it at the original size without a watermark. Three photos a day are free with no account, and ten with a free one.

If you want to stay with Adobe, its web tools in Express and Firefly also remove backgrounds on free plans. Our review compares what each one asks of you.

Adobe background remover review→

For full manual control without a subscription, GIMP is free and follows a similar select, clear and export pattern.

remove a background in GIMP→