Remove an image background in the browser without uploading the photo

A product shot, a school form, or a marketplace listing often wants a person or an object on a plain background. The usual path is an upload site: you send the JPEG, wait, and download a PNG with the background gone. That is convenient. It is also a privacy mismatch when the photo is a child, an ID, or the inside of a home.

Cutout runs background removal in the browser. You pick the file on your computer. The page does the work in the tab. We do not receive the photo. We do not run a file-processing server for this tool.

What “in the browser” means here

Client-side means the Cutout page sends code (and, on first use, a public model file) to your tab. Your browser reads the image with the File API. It estimates the foreground and writes a transparent PNG. When you click download, the new file is saved through the browser download manager. We never had a copy to delete, because we never received one.

The first run may download a model. That download is a program file, not your photo. Your picture is not attached to that request. After the model is cached, many sessions keep working even if the network drops.

How to remove a background on Cutout

1. Open https://images.sw-commercial.com/cutout.
2. Pick a JPG, PNG, or WebP from your device. Start with a photo that has a clear subject and a simple backdrop if you can.
3. Wait for the preview. A large camera file can take a few seconds on a phone.
4. Download the PNG with transparency. Keep the original if you still need the full scene.

You do not create an account. You do not wait for an email that says “your cutout is ready” and is actually a link to someone else’s disk. Free use does not require a trial form.

Photos that work, and photos that fight the model

A person standing a step away from a plain wall is the easy case. A cat on a patterned sofa is harder. Hair, bicycle spokes, and glass need a honest preview: check the edges before you send the file to a printer or a listing.

Shoot with daylight from the front when you can. Avoid beauty modes that smear the hairline. Leave space around the subject so the tool can tell foreground from floor. If the result eats a hand or a strap, try a tighter crop of the original, or a second photo with more contrast between subject and wall.

Cutout is not a studio retoucher. It will not invent a missing limb. It will not restore pixels you already discarded. It removes a background so you can place the subject on a new one.

Where the PNG goes next

Marketplace listings, slide decks, and ID-style crops often want transparency. Paste the PNG onto a white, grey, or brand-colour canvas in any editor you already have. If you need a solid white rectangle for a form that rejects transparency, flatten the PNG onto white in Tool Hub or in Preview / Photos.

If you only needed a smaller file, compress on Tool Hub instead of cutting the background. If you needed a passport size, use ID Photo. Those jobs are different tools on the image host vs the file host.

What we do not do

We do not store the photo. Ads, if shown on the page, are labeled and do not receive the file contents. The Chrome extension SW Toolbox can process images from a right-click, with 0 ads in the extension itself. It is a sibling product, not a second upload path.

If you use Cursor or Claude and want file jobs from the agent, the local MCP hub is documented at tools.sw-commercial.com/mcp. It binds to 127.0.0.1:17321 on your computer. It is not an upload API.

A note on “AI background removal”

The phrase is marketing. What you get is a local model plus your CPU or GPU in the tab. The quality depends on the photo, the device, and the model version we ship. Check the preview. If the edge is wrong, do not upload the same file to a random site “just to compare” unless you accept that second site receiving the picture.

For AdSense reviewers and for you: this page describes a real tool at a real URL. The steps above are the product. There is no hidden cloud queue behind the link.