Thanks to online tools and solutions powered by artificial intelligence, it has never been easier to outline a photo to change its background or create emotes. In this guide, we will explain how to do this using three tools: Photoshop, remove.bg, and Zyro.
Outlining a Subject
Whether it’s for creating photomontages, modifying illustrations, or retrieving only a subject with a transparent background, it can be practical to outline an image to recover only the main subject. In this tutorial, we will propose three solutions to easily outline your photos.
For each example, we will use the same image and try to refine the result as much as possible.
How to Create an Outlined Image with Photoshop?
The first approach is the most precise, but also the most costly, as it requires the use of Photoshop, available with the Adobe Photography license for 12 USD per month — or Creative Cloud for 62.47 USD per month.
The advantage of this method is that it allows you to easily select the subject to outline and recover the image in its original format. Here are the steps to follow:
- Open your original image in Photoshop.
- In the tool column, right-click on the selection tool.
- Select the square symbol for object selection.
- Hover over the object or subject until it is highlighted in blue, then validate with a left click.
- Right-click on the image then “invert selection”.
- In the layer panel, unlock the padlock next to your image.
- Press the “delete” key on your keyboard.
You can then reduce the size of the workspace to adjust it to the object you just outlined to reduce the space of the transparent background.
Finally, click on file, then export, and finally, “quick export in PNG format”.
The advantage of this formula is that you can precisely select the object you want to outline in your photo. Moreover, in case of poor automatic detection of the object’s contours on Photoshop, you can modify the selection from the options bar thanks to the “add to selection” and “subtract from selection” tools. You just need to frame the elements you want to add or subtract from the final image for them to be taken into account in the final rendering.
How to Quickly Remove the Background of an Image on remove.bg?
In recent years, several websites have offered to automate the process of outlining your photos. This is the case with the most well-known among them: remove.bg (for “remove background”).
This website has the advantage of not requiring a particularly powerful computer and being very straightforward. In practice, you just need to go to the web page in question, choose the image to upload, and validate. That’s it. Automatically, the site will remove the background to keep only what it considers the main subject of the photo.
Once the first version proposed by remove.bg, the site allows you to refine the result by erasing other elements of the photo or restoring them. It will also offer you several backgrounds in which you can integrate the outlined image.
The downside is that remove.bg only allows you to download the image in low resolution, at best at 0.25 megapixels. To download the outlined image in high quality, up to 25 megapixels, you will necessarily have to pay. Each high-definition image download will cost you one credit on the website. For 40 credits per month, count 9 USD, while 200 credits will cost you 39 USD each month. Without a subscription, you can buy lots of 1, 10, 75, or 200 credits for 1.99 USD, 9 USD, 49 USD, or 99 USD.
How to Outline an Image for Free with Zyro?
In contrast to remove.bg, other websites also offer outlining tools. And unlike the sector leader, some indeed allow you to use this feature for free.
This is the case with zyro.com, a website specialized in website editing for individuals or businesses. In addition to its CMS tool, the site offers a service for outlining photos.
Like remove.bg, Zyro offers a simple interface with the ability to upload your image and then see the proposed outline. However, Zyro stops there and does not allow you to manually modify the final result by adding or removing elements from the outlined version. It’s also impossible to integrate the outlined element on a background.
On the other hand, and unlike remove.bg, the download of the final image is free, even in high definition.
