alpha = 255
Fully opaque. The subject. Paint on the canvas.
Transparent background maker
Transparent backgrounds with real PNG alpha, not a white box
A real per-pixel alpha channel, so the file sits on whatever is behind it — in Figma, in Canva, in a slide deck, in a product listing. Not a white rectangle pretending.
Previews are free and unmetered. Exports cost one credit each — from £2.66for 3.
Alpha, plainly
Four channels, not three
Red, green and blue say what colour a pixel is. Alpha says how much of it there is. Every problem people have with "transparent" images comes down to that fourth number being thrown away somewhere.
alpha = 0
Fully transparent. Nothing there at all — not white, not a colour, genuinely absent. This is the checkerboard region above.
alpha = 1–254
Everything interesting. Hair, glass, smoke, motion, the outermost pixel of every edge on the image. Tools that skip this are the reason cutouts look harsh.
Where it goes
Formats, and which to pick
| Format | Alpha channel | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| PNG | Yes, 8-bit | Print, design software, anywhere compatibility matters more than weight | Large files for photographic subjects |
| WebP | Yes, 8-bit | The web, where a third of the file size is worth having | Older print RIPs and some legacy software still refuse it |
| JPEG | No — none, ever | Photographs already composited onto a background | Renaming a .jpg to .png does not add an alpha channel |
| SVG | Yes, but vector | Logos and flat graphics, not photographs | Tracing a photograph to SVG makes it worse, not better |
Working with a logo rather than a photograph? Vector output is usually the better answer — see the guides for the difference.
Questions about this tool
What is a transparent background, technically?
A fourth channel alongside red, green and blue: alpha, holding an opacity value from 0 to 255 for every pixel. A transparent background is not white and it is not a colour — it is a region where alpha is 0, so whatever sits behind the image shows through.
Why does my "transparent" PNG show a white box in PowerPoint?
Almost always because the file was flattened onto white at some point — exported as JPEG and renamed, or saved from a tool that discarded the alpha channel. JPEG has no alpha channel at all, so a .jpg can never be transparent regardless of what it is called.
PNG or WebP?
PNG when the file has to open anywhere without argument: print workflows, older design software, a client machine you do not control. WebP when it is going on the web and weight matters — it carries the same alpha channel at roughly a third of the size.
Does transparency survive being placed in Figma, Canva or InDesign?
Yes, all three read PNG alpha correctly. The place transparency tends to die is a conversion step you did not notice: an email client flattening onto white, or a marketplace re-encoding your upload to JPEG.
Can part of an image be semi-transparent?
That is the entire point of alpha matting. A car windscreen, a wine glass, a strand of hair and a lace hem all end up somewhere between 0 and 255, which is why they still look like glass and hair after the background has gone rather than like a cut-out silhouette.
The other three
Same engine, different last step.
Background remover
The general-purpose tool. Any photo, any subject.
Open →White background maker
Clean white for marketplaces and print.
Open →Background changer
Drop the subject onto a new scene.
Open →One credit, one full-resolution export. Previews never cost anything and are never rate-limited, because they run on your machine. Every credit expires 90 days from the day it is granted — pay-as-you-go and subscription alike. No VAT is added at checkout. See the full pricing table.