How to remove a background in Illustrator

To remove a background in Illustrator, select the photo and click Remove Background: in current versions it is one click. What that click does, and what it costs, is less obvious. Illustrator is a vector program, and a photograph is a grid of pixels that Illustrator holds as a placed image rather than as shapes it understands. So there are really three different jobs hiding behind the same search: cutting out a photo, masking a photo by hand, and turning a logo on a white background into clean vector shapes with no background at all.

This guide takes each in turn, with the export settings that keep the transparency and the reason a PNG from Illustrator sometimes comes out soft. Steps checked against Adobe’s Illustrator desktop help in September 2026.

First: what kind of picture is it?

The right method depends on what you placed on the artboard, and on what you want at the end.

The honest summary: for a photograph, Illustrator is the second-best Adobe app. Photoshop works on the pixels themselves, has Select and Mask for hair, and keeps a soft edge. If you have both, removing a background in Photoshop is the better guide for photos. Illustrator comes into its own when the result should be vector shapes.

Method 1: the Remove Background button

This is the route for a photograph when you are already working in Illustrator and want to stay there.

1. Place the photo. Choose File > Place, pick the photo, and click on the artboard to drop it in.
2. Select it. Use the Selection tool (the black arrow) and click the photo once.
3. Click Remove Background. The Contextual Task Bar, the small floating bar that appears under a selection, shows Remove Background for an image. Adobe also puts the command in the Quick Actions section of the Properties panel, in the Control panel, in the right-click menu and in the Object menu, so if the task bar is hidden you have four other ways in.
4. Check the result. Adobe’s help describes it plainly: the feature finds the outline of the subject and replaces the rest of the image with transparency, and the new image replaces the original on the artboard.

What the button needs, and where the photo goes

Adobe lists Remove Background among Illustrator’s generative AI features, next to Text to Vector Graphic and Generative Recolor. Adobe’s own FAQ for those features says two things that matter here. You must be connected to the internet to use them, and generative credits are applied when you do; Illustrator plans include an allowance of credits for priority processing. In practice that means the image is sent to Adobe’s online service to have its background removed, rather than being processed on your computer.

For most work that is fine. For a photo you would rather not send anywhere (an ID document, a client’s unreleased product, a photo of a child), it is worth knowing before you click. The other two methods in this guide run entirely inside Illustrator on your computer, and is it safe to upload photos online goes through what the popular online tools say they do with pictures.

When the button gets it wrong

Remove Background has no refine step. If it keeps a piece of floor between someone’s feet, or cuts off a strap, there is no brush to paint the mask back in Illustrator. Your options are to undo and use a clipping mask instead, or to open the image in Photoshop, where the cutout is a mask you can paint on.

Method 2: a clipping mask drawn by hand

A clipping mask is Illustrator’s traditional way to hide part of an image: a vector shape on top decides what shows, and everything outside it is hidden. It is precise, it works offline, and it gives a hard, clean edge. That makes it a good fit for products with straight or smoothly curved edges (a bottle, a phone, a chair) and a poor fit for hair, fur or anything soft.

1. Place the photo and zoom in to 200 percent or more, so you can see the edge you are tracing.
2. Trace the subject with the Pen tool (P). Click to place corner points, and click and drag to place smooth curve points. Stay a pixel or two inside the edge of the subject rather than exactly on it: tracing on the edge keeps a thin line of the old background.
3. Close the path by clicking on the first point again.
4. Select both. With the Selection tool, select the path and the photo together. The path must be on top.
5. Make the mask. Choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make, or press Ctrl + 7 (Command + 7 on a Mac).

The background is hidden, not deleted, which is useful: double-click the masked group to enter isolation mode and move points on the path to adjust the edge at any time. Object > Clipping Mask > Release gives you the untouched photo back.

For a subject with holes (the gap inside a mug handle, the space between an arm and the body), draw a second path around each hole, select both paths, and choose Object > Compound Path > Make before making the mask. The inner path then cuts a hole in the outer one.

A softer edge: opacity masks

A clipping mask is all or nothing at the edge. If a hard edge looks cut out with scissors, an opacity mask uses the brightness of a shape to set transparency instead, so a shape with a feathered edge gives a soft transition. It is fiddlier to set up (a white shape with Effect > Stylize > Feather over the photo, both selected, then Make Mask in the Transparency panel) and still no substitute for a real hair selection in a pixel editor. Use it for a gentle edge on a product, not for a portrait.

Method 3: Image Trace for a logo on a white background

When the picture is a logo, an icon, lettering or line art, removing the background is usually only half of what you want. The other half is a logo that stays sharp at any size. Image Trace does both: it converts the picture into vector shapes, and it can leave out the background while it does.

1. Place and select the logo.
2. Open the Image Trace panel with Window > Image Trace.
3. Choose a preset. For a one-colour logo, Black and White. For a logo in a few flat colours, set Mode to Color and Palette to Limited, and set the number of colours to what the logo really has.
4. Open Advanced by clicking the arrow next to it.
5. Leave out the background. Adobe’s current panel has two options for this under Options. Transparency stops a transparent background in the source from being traced as white. Ignore Color skips a colour you pick with the colour picker, which is the one to use for a white or coloured background. (Older versions of Illustrator called the equivalent option Ignore White.)
6. Click Trace, check the result with View set to show outlines, and adjust Paths, Corners and Noise if edges are lumpy or specks appear.
7. Click Expand to turn the trace into editable paths.

If a white shape survives the trace (often the counters inside letters like o and e), select one with the Direct Selection tool, choose Select > Same > Fill Color, and press Delete.

Image Trace has a lot of settings, and getSVG, our sibling site, has a whole guide to Illustrator’s Image Trace with the presets that work for logos and the ones that do not.

A logo photographed on paper, a wall or a shirt

Image Trace struggles when the logo is a photo: shadows, a paper texture and uneven light become shapes. The better order is to cut the logo out of the photo first, so the tracer only sees the logo, then trace. Turning a photographed logo into a transparent PNG walks through it, and at that point a dedicated tracer such as getSVG’s logo to vector is an alternative to Image Trace that runs in the browser.

Exporting a transparent PNG from Illustrator

The artboard in Illustrator looks white, but it is not part of the artwork. Whether the white ends up in your PNG depends on one setting.

1. Choose File > Export > Export As.
2. Pick PNG as the format. Tick Use Artboards if you want the PNG to be the size of the artboard; leave it off to crop the PNG to the artwork itself.
3. Click Export. The PNG Options dialog opens.
4. Set Background Color to Transparent. It defaults to White on many installations, which is the single most common reason for a white PNG.
5. Set Resolution. Screen is 72 ppi, Medium is 150 ppi, High is 300 ppi, and Other lets you type a value.
6. Click OK.

File > Export > Export for Screens does the same for several artboards or assets at once; the background setting is in its advanced settings, under the gear icon.

Why the exported PNG is blurrier than the photo

Illustrator does not export a photo at its own pixel size. It renders the artwork at the size it has on the artboard, times the resolution you chose. A 4000 pixel wide photo scaled down to 1000 points wide and exported at 72 ppi comes out 1000 pixels wide: three quarters of its pixels thrown away. Check the photo’s Effective PPI in the Links panel before exporting, and either export at a higher resolution or scale the artwork up so the PNG keeps the detail you started with.

When Illustrator is the wrong tool

• Hair, fur, smoke, glass. A clipping mask cannot be partly transparent at the edge, and the Remove Background button offers no refine step. A pixel editor, or a dedicated cutout tool, does these better.
• A lot of photos. One at a time through Place, Remove Background and Export As is slow, and each one spends credits.
• No internet, and a photo too complex to trace by hand. Neither of the offline methods is quick for a portrait.
• A pale fringe around the cutout. When the old background was bright, some of its colour sits in the edge pixels. The white halo around a cutout explains what causes it and how to clear it.

For those, cut the photo out first and place the result in Illustrator as a PNG that is already transparent. Illustrator shows and keeps the transparency of a placed PNG, so the cutout drops onto your layout with nothing behind it.

If you work in other apps too, removing a background in any app compares the built-in tools side by side, and what a transparent PNG is covers what happens to transparency when the file leaves Illustrator.

The steps, in short

1. Place the photo. File > Place, choose the photo and click on the artboard. Check it is selected with the Selection tool (the black arrow).
2. Remove the background. Click Remove Background in the Contextual Task Bar under the image, or in Quick Actions in the Properties panel. The image is replaced by one with a transparent background.
3. Or mask it by hand. Trace the subject with the Pen tool, select the path and the photo together, and choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Ctrl + 7, or Command + 7 on a Mac).
4. Or trace a logo. For flat artwork, open Window > Image Trace, choose a preset, open Advanced, tick Transparency or Ignore Color for the background, then click Expand.
5. Export a transparent PNG. File > Export > Export As, choose PNG, tick Use Artboards if you want the artboard size, then set Background Color to Transparent in PNG Options.

Questions

Does Illustrator have a remove background tool?

Yes. Select a placed image and click Remove Background in the Contextual Task Bar, or find it in Quick Actions in the Properties panel, the right-click menu, the Control panel or the Object menu. Adobe lists it among Illustrator's generative AI features, which need an internet connection and use generative credits.

Why is my Illustrator PNG export white instead of transparent?

In the PNG Options dialog, Background Color is set to White. Set it to Transparent and export again. If the white is still there, check for a white rectangle behind the artwork: a background shape exports as part of the picture, whatever the setting.

How do I remove a white background from a logo in Illustrator?

Use Image Trace. Select the logo, open Window > Image Trace, pick a preset such as Black and White or a limited colour one, open Advanced, turn on Transparency or use Ignore Color to skip the white, then click Expand. Any white shapes left behind can be selected with Select > Same > Fill Color and deleted.

Can I remove a background in Illustrator without internet?

Not with the Remove Background button, which Adobe says needs a connection like its other generative features. A clipping mask drawn with the Pen tool works offline, as does Image Trace. Both run on your computer.

Why does my cutout look blurry after exporting from Illustrator?

Illustrator exports a PNG at the size of the artwork times the resolution you pick, not at the photo's own pixel size. A photo scaled down on the artboard and exported at Screen (72 ppi) loses pixels. Export at High (300 ppi) or Other with a higher value, or scale the photo up on the artboard.

Is Illustrator or Photoshop better for removing a background?

Photoshop, for photographs. It works on pixels, has Select Subject and Select and Mask for hair, and keeps a soft edge. Illustrator is for vector artwork: it is the better choice when the end result is a logo or icon you want as shapes, not a photo cutout.