Black and white background, subject in colour Grey world, colourful you.
Your background turns black and white. You keep every colour.
or drop it here · paste with Ctrl+V
Free · No sign-up · Photos stay on your device
Works with JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC from an iPhone, GIF and BMP.
Open a photograph and its own background turns black and white while the subject keeps every colour it had — then darken the room, or swap it for a near-black ground.
What this mode does
The canvas opens on the photograph's own room with its colour taken out: the subject is found, the background is turned to grey in linear light, and the subject is laid back on top in full colour. Nothing is blurred and nothing is replaced unless you ask.
The Background tone panel holds the two settings — how black and white, how much darker — and three presets. The same panel appears whenever the ground is your own backdrop photograph, so a new scene can go grey too.
Steps
- Open the photographA subject that stands out from the room in shape works best; colour splash looks strongest when the subject is the most colourful thing in the frame.
- Check the outlineUnder Subject, look at the edge. Anything the selection missed shows grey on the subject; paint it back with Keep under Refine edge.
- Set the toneLeave it at full black and white, ease it back for a muted look, or darken it until the subject is the only bright thing.
- SaveJPEG for sharing, PNG if you want an exact copy. The tone is applied again at full size when you save.
Grey room or near-black ground
Keeping the room in grey keeps the place — the street, the stage, the party — and lets the subject's colour carry the picture. A near-black ground removes the place entirely, which suits a profile picture on a dark app or a dramatic portrait.
What it cannot do
- It turns the background grey by the outline, not by colour: a red object in the background goes grey with the rest, and a grey part of the subject stays grey.
- Nothing here measures distance, so the whole background gets the same treatment from the nearest wall to the far horizon.
- Glass, smoke and fine hair against a busy room are the hard cases, as on every route.
Questions about black and white background
Is this the colour splash effect?
Yes — the same idea. The photograph's own background loses its colour while the subject keeps all of its own. The cut between the two follows the subject's outline, not a brush you have to paint by hand.
Can I make the background darker instead of only grey?
Darken lowers the background's brightness from 0 to 90% while leaving the subject untouched. Dark and moody sets full black and white with the background about half as bright.
I want a plain black background, not my room in grey.
Press Near-black ground. It replaces the background with a near-black colour (RGB 30, 30, 30), which holds dark hair and shoulders better than pure black.
Why does a coloured line show round the hair?
Hair mixes with the room behind it. Edge unmixing is on by default to take the room's colour back out of those pixels; if a fringe survives, move Edge shift under Subject to about −0.5 px.
Does the photo leave my phone?
No. The outline, the grey and the file are all made in this tab. There is no upload step and no server that could receive the picture.
Related
- Blur backgroundKeep the original setting but soften it behind the subject.
- Profile picture backgroundA square canvas with the circle crop drawn on it, and WhatsApp, Instagram and LinkedIn sizes.
- Use your own backdropChoose a second photograph, cover-crop it behind the subject and keep the same repairable edge.
- Blur the background or replace it?Choose between preserving the original scene with blur and substituting a new setting.
The image you open is read by this page and by nothing else — there is no server behind this domain that could receive it, the outline is worked out inside your own browser either by arithmetic or by an on-device model, and if you ask for a model it is the model that is downloaded to you rather than your photo being sent to it.
