Is the Make Color Transparent tool free?
Yes. This tool is completely free to use, with no sign-up and no watermark on the exported PNG.
Does it upload my image to a server?
No. Color sampling, tolerance processing, and PNG export all happen locally in your browser, so your image never leaves your device.
What kind of images does it work best on?
It works best on logos, icons, scans, and graphics with a flat, uniform background color. Complex photographic scenes usually need a full background-removal workflow instead.
What format is the output?
The output is a PNG with a transparent alpha channel, so the cleared color shows through to whatever background you place it on.
Why are some edges still colored after exporting?
Anti-aliased edges blend the background color into the subject. Raise the tolerance slightly to catch those blended pixels, then use edge smoothing for a cleaner border.
Why did parts of my subject disappear too?
Because the removal is global. Every pixel matching the picked color within your tolerance becomes transparent, no matter where it is in the image. This is the correct behaviour for a flat graphic on a solid background, and the wrong tool for a photo where the background color also appears in the subject. For that, use a background remover, which decides what is subject and what is not.
What tolerance should I start with?
The default of 36 is a good starting point for a clean, flat background. Raise it if a mottled or gradient background is only partly removed, and lower it if parts of the subject start vanishing. Because the distance is measured in raw RGB, the useful number changes with the image, so watch the preview rather than reusing a value.
Does this work on photos?
Poorly, most of the time. A photographic background has hundreds of slightly different shades from lighting, noise, and JPEG compression, so no single color plus tolerance covers all of it without also eating the subject. It works well on screenshots, logos, scanned line art, exported charts, and anything with a genuinely flat background.
Why is there a jagged edge on the result?
Because the edge pixels of the original are blends between the subject and the background, and a hard threshold either keeps or deletes each one with nothing in between. Raise edge smoothing, which creates a band beyond your tolerance where the alpha ramps down gradually, so those blend pixels fade rather than being cut.
Does the image stay on my device?
Yes. The color test runs pixel by pixel on a canvas in the page and the PNG is encoded locally, so nothing about the image is transmitted. The only network call is a credit counter carrying the tool name.