How to remove a background in Procreate

To remove a background in Procreate you select it and clear it, because Procreate has no button that finds the subject for you. The selection tools are fast with an Apple Pencil, a layer mask makes the whole thing reversible, and one step at the end decides whether you get a transparent PNG or a picture on white: hiding the Background color layer before you export.

This guide covers the four methods Procreate’s own help centre describes, when each one is the right one, and how to export so the transparency survives. Checked against the Procreate Handbook (Procreate 5.4) and Procreate’s help centre in September 2026, on iPad.

The four ways, and which to use

Procreate’s help article on cropping and removing a background lists the methods. They suit different pictures:

If the background is one colour, start with Automatic. If it is busy, draw with Freehand. If the edge is going to need work, use a mask. If you just want a quick cutout of a person or a pet, let Apple’s Photos app find it and bring the result in.

Before you start: open the photo the right way

In the Gallery, tap Photo and choose the picture. That opens it as a new artwork. If you instead add a photo into an existing canvas with Actions > Add > Insert a photo, it is placed on that canvas and may be scaled to fit it, and the size of the canvas decides the size of your export. To check what you have, open Actions > Canvas and look at the canvas information.

Photos taken on an iPhone or iPad are often stored as HEIC. That matters later if you send the photo to another tool, because not every tool reads HEIC.

Method 1: Automatic selection for a plain background

Automatic selection picks areas of similar colour where you tap, a bit like a magic wand.

1. Duplicate the layer first (swipe left on it in Layers and tap Duplicate), and hide the copy. It is your undo if you clear too much.
2. Tap Selections (the ribbon icon at the top left) and tap Automatic in the toolbar at the bottom.
3. Tap the background. It turns into the selection.
4. Adjust the threshold. Keep your finger down after tapping and drag left or right. The Procreate Handbook’s page on Automatic selection describes it: dragging right lets the selection flow into surrounding areas, dragging left pulls it back. Stop just before it spills into the subject.
5. Tap other background areas that were not included, such as a gap between an arm and the body.
6. Clear it. Tap the layer, then scrub three fingers left and right across the canvas. The background disappears.

Automatic selection judges by colour, so it struggles where the subject and background are close in colour, and a grainy or JPEG-compressed photo can leave a speckled edge.

Method 2: Freehand selection and Invert

For a subject with a clean outline on a busy background, draw around the subject and flip the selection.

1. Tap Selections, then Freehand.
2. Draw around the subject. Drag with the Pencil for a smooth line, or tap point by point for straight segments. Close the shape by tapping the starting dot.
3. Tap Feather if you want a softer edge. The slider starts at 0 percent (crisp edge) and diffuses the edge more as you raise it. Two or three percent takes the sharpness off without making a glow.
4. Tap Invert. Now everything except the subject is selected.
5. Clear it with a three-finger scrub, as above.

Zoom in with two fingers while you draw; the selection keeps going. A slow, zoomed line around a product at 300 percent is far cleaner than a quick one at full view.

Method 3: a layer mask, the reversible way

Clearing pixels is final once you leave the artwork’s undo history. A layer mask hides them instead, so a bad edge can be painted back at any time.

1. Tap the photo layer to open Layer Options, then tap Mask. A white mask layer appears above the photo, linked to it.
2. Understand the colours. The Handbook’s page on layer masks puts it simply: painting black hides parts of the layer, painting white reveals them, and greys give partial transparency. While the mask is selected, the colour panel ignores hue, so you can only paint in grey tones.
3. Select the background with Automatic or Freehand and Invert, as in the methods above.
4. Fill the selection with black on the mask: with the mask layer active and black as your colour, drag the colour disc from the top right into the selection. The background disappears; nothing has been deleted.
5. Refine the edge with a brush on the mask. Black with a hard brush tidies an outline; a soft airbrush in grey around hair makes the edge partly transparent, which is how hair really looks.
6. Fix mistakes by painting white where you hid too much.

This is the method that gives the best edge on hair in Procreate, and also the slowest: a head of curly hair can take half an hour of careful soft-brush work. What an alpha channel is explains why those greys matter, and why a cutout with only fully solid and fully clear pixels looks cut out with scissors.

Method 4: let Apple’s Photos app find the subject

On a compatible iPad, the Photos app can lift the subject from a photo on its own. Procreate’s help article lists it as a method.

1. Open the photo in Photos.
2. Touch and hold the subject until a glowing outline runs around it.
3. Tap Copy, or drag the lifted subject straight into Procreate in Split View.
4. In Procreate, scrub three fingers down to open the Copy and Paste menu and tap Paste. The subject arrives on a new layer with no background.

This is quick, and the detection is often good. The limits are the ones described in removing a background on iPhone: you do not control the edge, it picks what it thinks is the subject (which may not be what you want in a group photo), and fine hair is handled roughly. If you paste into a smaller canvas, it is also only as large as that canvas.

Export a transparent PNG from Procreate

Every Procreate artwork has a Background color layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. You can change its colour, but you cannot delete it, and while it is visible it is part of the export.

1. Open Layers and untick the checkbox on Background color. The Handbook’s Layers interface page says to hide it for a transparent background, and calls that perfect for exporting a PNG. The canvas now shows a grey grid where the background was.
2. Hide any other layers you do not want in the file, such as the backup copy.
3. Tap Actions (the wrench icon), then Share, then PNG, as described on the Handbook’s Share page.
4. Choose a destination: Save Image puts it in Photos, Save to Files keeps it as a file, or send it to another app.

Do not pick JPEG. JPEG has no transparency at all, so the empty area is filled. If you save to Photos and share from there, some apps convert to JPEG on the way; saving to Files and sharing the file avoids that. Why a PNG shows a black or white background lists the apps that flatten transparency.

Privacy: what stays on the iPad

Procreate is an on-device app. Its app privacy policy says artworks are saved directly on your iPad and that the apps do not connect to Savage’s web services. The three Procreate methods above work entirely inside the app, without sending the photo anywhere. The picture only leaves when you share it, back it up to iCloud, or send it to another app or website. That is worth keeping in mind when a tutorial suggests a quick detour through an online remover: that is the step that uploads. Is it safe to upload photos online covers what those sites do with the file.

When this does not work well

• Hair against a busy background. Selections cannot separate strands; a mask can, slowly, by hand. This is the case where an AI cutout saves the most time.
• Low contrast. A white product on a white table defeats Automatic selection. Draw it with Freehand, or raise the contrast with Adjustments > Curves first on a copy, as Procreate’s help article suggests for scanned sketches.
• A rim of the old background. Colour from the background is mixed into the edge pixels. Shrink the selection slightly, or paint the mask edge inwards. White halo around a cutout explains the cause.
• A small export. The export is the size of the canvas. If you pasted the subject into a small canvas, it cannot come out larger.

For other apps you might have on the same iPad, see removing a background in any app.

The steps, in short

1. Open the photo as its own artwork. In the Gallery, tap Photo and choose the picture, so the canvas matches the photo instead of squeezing it into another canvas.
2. Select the background or the subject. Tap Selections. Automatic selects areas of similar colour as you tap; Freehand lets you draw around the subject.
3. Invert if you selected the subject. With the subject selected, tap Invert in the selection toolbar so the background is selected instead.
4. Clear or mask the background. Scrub three fingers left and right to clear the selection, or add a layer mask and fill the selection with black to hide it reversibly.
5. Hide the Background color layer. In the Layers panel, untick the checkbox on Background color. The canvas now shows transparency behind the subject.
6. Export as PNG. Tap Actions (the wrench), then Share, then PNG, and choose where to save or send the file.

Questions

Does Procreate have a background remover?

Not a one-tap one. Procreate's own help article lists manual selection, Automatic selection, a mask trick for scanned line art, and lifting the subject in Apple's Photos app and dragging it in. The selection tools are good; the subject detection is Apple's, not Procreate's.

Why does my Procreate PNG have a white background?

Because the Background color layer was still visible when you exported. Every Procreate artwork has one. Open Layers, untick its checkbox so the canvas shows transparency, and export the PNG again. JPEG export always fills the background, so use PNG.

How do I make the background transparent in Procreate?

Remove or mask everything that is not the subject, then hide the Background color layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. What is left is transparent, and Actions > Share > PNG keeps it. PSD and the .procreate format keep it too.

How do I get a soft edge around hair in Procreate?

Tap Feather in the selection toolbar before clearing, which diffuses the edge of the selection evenly. For real hair, paint the edge of a layer mask with a soft brush in shades of grey: grey on a mask means partly transparent. It takes time; an AI cutout does this part better.

Does Procreate upload my artwork?

No. Procreate's app privacy policy says artworks are saved on your iPad and the app does not connect to Savage's web services. Your artwork only leaves the iPad if you share it, back it up to iCloud, or drag it into another app that uploads.