Review a transparent-background result

A cut-out that looks perfect as a thumbnail can be unusable at full size. This is the check to run before a background-removed image goes anywhere near a live page.

Look at it properly

Open the attachment at full size, not in the media grid. Thumbnails hide exactly the defects this tool produces.

Then view it against three backgrounds:

1. White — shows dark fringing and leftover shadow.
2. A dark colour — shows light halos and semi-transparent edges. This is where most failures become obvious.
3. The background it will actually appear on.

If your result has a solid colour fill rather than transparency, you only need the third.

What to look for

Edges. Are they clean, or is there a rim of the old background still attached? A one- or two-pixel halo of the previous colour is the most common defect.

Hair, fur and fine detail. Look at the outline closely. Cut-outs of hair typically come back either chopped off in a hard line or blurred into a smudge. Neither reads as natural.

Thin elements. Cables, handles, stems, chair legs, spectacle frames. These are frequently severed or partially erased.

Transparent and reflective parts. Glass, bottles, chrome, water. The tool has to decide whether you can see through them; it often decides wrongly, leaving a solid shape where there should be transparency or erasing the object's body.

Shadows. Was the shadow treated as part of the subject or as background? Either can be correct — a product with its contact shadow retained often looks better — but it should be consistent across a catalogue.

Holes. Gaps that should be transparent: the space inside a mug handle, between arms and body, inside a ring. Check they were cut out rather than filled.

The subject itself. Occasionally a part of the subject is removed along with the background, usually where it was similar in colour.

When the result is wrong

Try a solid background colour instead. Many defects that are glaring against transparency disappear behind a fill, because there is no edge blending to go wrong. For catalogue images this is often the pragmatic answer.

Try the higher-quality profile on that single image. It costs more but is worth one attempt on a hard subject.

Try a better source. A higher-resolution original with more contrast between subject and background gives a markedly better result. See Choose the source image.

Fix it manually. For one important image, a few minutes in an image editor beats repeated regeneration.

Accept that some subjects will not work. Fine hair against a busy background and clear glass are genuinely hard. Plan to shoot or source those differently rather than paying repeatedly.

Checking a batch

Reviewing 200 cut-outs individually is not realistic, so sample deliberately:

• every image that will appear large, at full size;
• one image per product category or subject type;
• every image you predicted would be difficult;
• a random handful, viewed against a dark background.

Also read the processing summary from the run. A batch can complete with individual failures reported there.

Practical checks before publishing

• File size. Transparent images of photographic subjects are often larger than the originals. Check the weight of a page that displays many of them.
• Downstream processing. Confirm that any image optimisation or conversion in your stack preserves transparency; a plugin that flattens to JPEG will produce black or white boxes.
• Consistency. Across a catalogue, the crop, scale, shadow treatment and background must match. Inconsistent cut-outs look worse than consistent un-cut photographs.
• Alternative text. Removing a background does not change what the image needs to say. See Write alternative text that helps.

If you replaced the original

If the run used Yes, update references and keep the original, supported references are updated and both attachments remain available.

Check the pages that used the image — see Replace an image everywhere it appears — and select the retained original in the appropriate editors if you prefer it. A site backup is the route to a complete rollback of reference changes.

This is why it is worth running background removal with No, create a new media library entry until you know how your material behaves.