Guide
How to remove the background from a picture on a Mac
Cut out a subject or clear a flat-colour background, then save a transparent PNG.
Updated October 20, 2026
There are two kinds of background: a photo background behind a person, pet or object, and a flat colour behind a logo, icon or scanned drawing. Easy Paint Pro has a command for each. Either way, save the result as a PNG so the transparent parts stay transparent.
Remove a photo background
Open the picture
Drag it onto the Easy Paint Pro window, or use .
Remove the background
Choose . Your Mac finds the main subject and clears everything around it. This works best when the subject stands out clearly from what’s behind it.
Tidy the edges
Zoom in (hold Shift and scroll) and use the Eraser on anything that was left behind. Press Command–Z if you remove too much.
Save with transparency
Choose . JPEG can’t store transparency, so a JPEG would fill the background in again.
Remove a plain-colour background
For a logo on white, or a drawing scanned on paper, choose . It asks for one background pixel by its position (the top-left corner, 0, 0, is usually background) and a tolerance from 0 to 255. Pixels close to that colour become transparent. Raise the tolerance to catch slightly different shades, such as paper texture or a soft shadow, and lower it if parts of your logo disappear. Then export as PNG.
Put it on a new background
- Copy the cut-out, open another picture and right-click the canvas for Paste from Clipboard. Drag it into place and press Return.
- Or fill the empty area with Fill: a solid colour, a gradient, a pattern or an emoji.
The free way built into macOS
Since macOS Ventura, you can Control-click a picture in Finder and choose . It saves a PNG copy next to the original. It’s quick, but you can’t tidy the edges, clear a flat colour by tolerance or add a new background, which is where a paint program helps.