About the Quick Selection Tool
The quick selection tool lets you select part of a picture by painting over it. As you drag the brush, each pixel inside the brush circle joins the selection if its colour is close to the colour under the centre of the brush, so the selection stays inside a blue sky or a red shirt and does not leak across the edge into a different colour. You control the brush size and the tolerance, and you can paint several strokes to add to the selection. Then keep the selection and make the rest transparent, or remove it. The result is a PNG with real transparency, edited in your browser, and your picture is never uploaded. It works on colour only, so it is not an artificial intelligence tool.
Updated October 2026
How to use the Quick Selection Tool
- 1Select an image or drop one on the page.
- 2Set the brush size and the tolerance.
- 3Press and drag over the part you want to select. Paint again to add more.
- 4Choose Keep the selection or Remove the selection and set a soft edge if you like.
- 5Press Cut out the selection, then Download PNG.
How the brush works
The brush has a circle of the size you choose. Wherever it goes, it looks at the colour at the centre and selects the pixels in the circle that are close to it. Because the check is made at every point of your stroke, the selection can follow a gradient, such as a sky that gets darker towards the top.
Choosing size and tolerance
- Use a big brush and a middle tolerance for large even areas, such as a wall or a sky.
- Use a small brush near edges so it cannot reach the other side.
- Raise the tolerance for textured areas, such as grass or a sweater.
- Lower the tolerance when the selection spills into a similar colour next to it.
- Start with the default tolerance and adjust after the first stroke.
Keep, remove and soft edges
Keep the selection makes everything else transparent, which is how you cut out an object. Remove the selection deletes the painted area, which is how you take out a background. A soft edge of one to three pixels makes cut edges look natural on photos. Crop the result to the selection trims the empty space.
What it cannot do
It does not know what an object is. A white shirt against a white wall is the same colour, so the brush will cover both. For a subject with a complicated outline, such as hair, a tool that understands pictures is better. For logos, product shots on plain backgrounds, flat graphics and screenshots, the colour brush is fast and precise.
Phone and computer
The brush size slider has large touch targets. On a phone, drag with a finger. The picture is limited to about 16 million pixels so that selecting stays smooth. Painting a selection is fast, and other selections suit other jobs. Use the Magic Wand Tool for flat colours, the Lasso Tool for hand-drawn outlines, and the Rectangle Select Tool for boxes. Save the cut-out with Make Background Transparent.
Features
- Brush selection that follows colour
- Adjustable brush size and tolerance
- Add to the selection with more strokes
- Keep or remove, with a soft edge and optional crop
- Transparent PNG at full size
- Edited on your device, no upload
Frequently asked questions
How does the quick selection tool decide what to select?
For each place the brush passes, it compares every pixel inside the brush circle with the pixel under the brush centre. If the red, green, blue and transparency values are all within the tolerance, the pixel is selected.
Is this the same as the Photoshop quick selection tool?
It does the same job in a simpler way. It uses colour similarity only, with no edge detection or artificial intelligence, so it works best on areas of clear, even colour.
What does tolerance do?
A low tolerance selects only very similar shades. A high tolerance lets the selection spread over more shades. If the selection leaks, lower it. If it leaves speckles, raise it.
How do I take pixels out of the selection?
There is no subtract brush. Press Clear selection and paint again with a lower tolerance or a smaller brush.
Can I paint more than once?
Yes. Each stroke adds to the selection, so you can build up a shape in several passes.
Why is the edge rough on a photo?
Photos have soft transitions between colours. A soft edge of 1 or 2 pixels smooths the cut, and for hair or fur a cutout tool based on artificial intelligence would do better.
Is my picture uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Touch and drag with a finger. The page does not scroll while you paint on the picture.