How to Remove a Background in Procreate

Procreate does not have a one-tap button that deletes a background the way some photo apps do. What it gives you is a set of selection tools and layer masks that, used together, produce a clean cutout on an iPad. This guide walks through the method that works best for most photos, explains where it breaks down, and shows a quicker route for cases where you only need the cutout and not the painting workflow.

What you need before you start

Import the photo into a new canvas, or open an existing canvas and add the photo from the Actions menu. Procreate places an inserted photo on its own layer, which is what you want: the selection and mask tools act on the active layer, so keeping the photo separate from your other work protects everything else.

• An iPad with Procreate installed and the photo saved in Photos or Files.
• A subject that stands apart from its background. A person against a plain wall is easy. Fine hair against a busy street is not.
• A few minutes of patience for edge cleanup, because the automatic tools get you most of the way and not all of it.

Method 1: Automatic Selection and Invert

This is the fastest approach when the subject has a clear outline and the background is a fairly uniform color or texture.

1. Tap the Selection tool (the S-shaped icon in the top bar) and choose Automatic at the bottom of the screen.
2. Make sure the photo layer is the active layer, then tap the part of the picture you want to remove, for example the sky or the wall. Procreate floods the selection across similar colors.
3. Drag your finger or pencil across the canvas to set the threshold. Sliding right selects more of the surrounding area, sliding left selects less. Watch the striped overlay and stop when the whole background is covered without eating into the subject.
4. If the selection misses spots, switch the mode to Add and tap the missed areas. If it spilled into the subject, switch to Remove and tap those parts to take them out.
5. Tap Invert at the bottom if you selected the subject instead of the background, so that the background is what is highlighted.
6. With the background selected, open the layer menu and tap Clear, or use the three-finger swipe down to open the Cut, Copy and Paste menu and choose Cut. The background disappears and shows the checkerboard of a transparent layer.

Because deleted pixels are gone for good, this method is destructive. It is fine for a quick job, but the next method is safer when you may want to change your mind.

Method 2: Selection plus a Layer Mask

A layer mask hides pixels instead of deleting them, so you can repaint the mask later and bring back anything that was hidden by mistake. This is the method most Procreate artists prefer for a polished result.

1. Make a selection of the subject. Either use Automatic Selection on the subject itself, or use the Freehand mode to draw around it, closing the loop to fill it.
2. Refine the selection. Use Feather in the selection toolbar to soften the edge slightly, which helps the cutout blend when you place it on a new background.
3. Open the Layers panel, tap the photo layer, and choose Mask. Procreate builds a mask from the active selection, so only the selected area stays visible.
4. If you selected the background by mistake, tap the mask thumbnail and choose Invert Mask to swap what is shown and hidden.
5. Select the mask thumbnail, pick a brush, and paint with black to hide more of the photo or white to reveal it. A small, hard brush works well along edges, and a soft brush works for hair and fur.
6. Hide the original layer beneath and check the result against a dark background and a light one. Halos, which are thin lines of the old background color, show up fastest this way.

Cleaning up edges and fine detail

Automatic tools judge pixels by color, not by meaning. That is why the usual trouble spots are the same in every photo.

• Hair and fur. Strands the same color as the background get cut or kept as a block. Paint on the mask with a soft brush at low opacity to blend them back in.
• Soft shadows. A shadow on the floor is part of the background to a human but looks like a gradient to the tool. Decide whether you want it, and mask it by hand.
• Matching colors. A white shirt on a white wall will bleed. Zoom in and use a small brush on the mask instead of relying on the threshold.
• Transparent objects. Glass and water show the background through them. No selection tool will separate them cleanly, so expect manual work or a different tool.

Zoom in to at least 200 percent while you work on edges. Mistakes that look invisible at fit-to-screen size are obvious once the cutout sits on another color.

Exporting with a transparent background

A cutout only stays transparent if you export it in the right format. In the Actions menu, open Share and choose PNG, which keeps the transparent areas. A JPEG fills them with a solid color, usually white, and loses the transparency. Before exporting, hide any background color layer, since Procreate includes visible layers in the file. If you want a PNG, also check that the Background color layer in the Layers panel is switched off, because it is on by default for new canvases and will show up as a solid fill.

To understand why this matters, the post how to make an image transparent explains the difference between a transparent background and a PNG that merely looks white.

Where Procreate is the wrong tool

Procreate is an illustration app. It is excellent for painting on top of a cutout and for building a composition, but it is not built for batch work or for photos with complicated edges. If you have more than a handful of images, or hair, fur, or a cluttered scene, the manual cleanup gets long. The same is true on the desktop: removing a background in Photoshop gives you more precise selection tools, at the cost of a paid subscription.

A faster free way

If all you need is the cutout, you can skip the selection work. Open the Transparent Background Maker in Safari on your iPad, choose the photo, and wait a few seconds while the AI model removes the background. The image goes over an encrypted connection to the site's server, the result comes straight back, and the site does not save or keep images. You can then download a transparent PNG, a JPG, or a WebP, and import that file into Procreate as a ready-made layer to paint on.

• It is free, with no account and no watermark.
• There is a free daily allowance of 30 images per visitor.
• Images up to 20 MB and 4096 px on the long side keep their full size, and larger ones are scaled down first.
• It works on JPG, PNG, and WebP files.

Use the web tool for the rough cutout, then bring the PNG into Procreate and fix the details with a layer mask. That combination is often quicker than building the whole selection by hand, and you still get Procreate's brushes for the finishing touches.

Quick checklist

1. Keep the photo on its own layer and duplicate it first.
2. Use Automatic Selection for clear outlines and Freehand for tricky shapes.
3. Prefer a layer mask over deleting pixels.
4. Zoom in and clean edges against both a dark and a light background.
5. Turn off the Background color layer and export as PNG.