Quickly remove the background from photos. Tap and hold any picture stored in the Files app, and then tap Quick Actions > Remove Background. iOS creates a duplicate of your original photo with no background—perfect for further editing in another app. You can use the same trick with several photos, too.
I tried that after moving a photo to Files. If I tap and hold the picture no “Quick Actions” appears anywhere. If I hold it does select the foreground picture though, and if I Share it and choose Save Image it saves the picture without the background in Photos.
Is this what others are seeing? What’s the easiest/best way of removing backgrounds? Why the roundabout storing in Files first? Also, the resolution of the new image seems lower. I was interested in maybe printing this image of my dog on a T-shirt. What’s the best way to remove backgrounds and keep a high res?
I don’t know about Files, but it’s easy to remove a background in Photos. Follow these steps to make a sticker, then instead of saving it as a sticker, share it to a new photo or file.
I’ve done that before. And I just repeated it with the same original photo and added a sticker of my dog. I guess I’ll just do it there instead of that Wirecutter roundabout suggestion of using Files. Thanks.
On Apple Photos on a Mac, if the photo’s subject is clear, you can control-click on the photo and select ‘Copy Subject’ or ‘Share Subject’ from the dropdown menu.
The extracted image isn’t actually lower resolution. You’re being misled by the edges of the extraction—this will happen particularly with fur and hair. The algorithm has great difficulty discerning what is hair and what is not (particularly with a heavily textured background) so it will blur the edge to mask the issues. Also, things will get oddly chopped-off when it really can’t figure out what’s going-on.
If you use Photoshop, they spent vast quantities of time refining their extraction algorithm so it looks much better but still there are lots of problems. Professionals can spend hours pulling out a subject from a photo using tiny masking brushes inch by inch.
That said, Photos does a surprising job with subject extraction perhaps one of the best features of their new “AI” initiatives. It’s often good enough for a t-shirt. . . .
It seems to be good enough for a smallish region of a T-shirt. But the custom printing software complains if I make it too large. It says a better resolution would be recommended for larger prints.
That should be more than large enough to do a silk screen (or ink jet) on a t-shirt. However, if your dog occupies less than a quarter of the original picture and you want it to span the entire shirt they may well complain. Perhaps you could think of it as a 3" diameter logo on the shirt?
It’s comfortably more than that. The system warns you when the resolution seems too low and you can shrink down until it approves. Here’s a picture of a T-shirt I previously made this way. Not bad. I was just thinking of “shockingly full front” images sometimes is all.
