Remove Backgrounds Using Only Windows

This video shows how to remove backgrounds from photos using only built‑in Windows tools, with no Photoshop or paid online services required. It uses Paint 3D to create clean cutouts, refine edges, and save transparent PNGs quickly and for free:

In this video we’re going to quickly go through removing backgrounds from photos using only built in Windows tools. A lot of people assume that in order to remove the background from a photo they need to use Photoshop or a premium online converter, but that’s not the case. This method is free, fast, and easy to learn. Let’s get started.

The program we’ll be using is a Windows app called Paint 3D. Do you have Paint 3D on your computer? If you have an older install of Windows 10, meaning you’ve had Windows 10 for a while, the answer should be yes. If you have a newer install of Windows 10 or if you have Windows 11, then Paint 3D is not automatically installed by default. You can download the Paint 3D app from the Microsoft Store. If you have an older version of Windows such as Windows 7 or Windows 8, or if you have a Mac, then unfortunately you won’t have access to Paint 3D.

To access Paint 3D, go down into the taskbar and type Paint 3D in the search box. You’ll see Paint 3D show up as one of the best match options. Go ahead and click on that to open it.

Now let’s take the photo we want to remove the background from and drop it onto the blank canvas. Here’s a nice picture of an electric air duster that we would like to remove the background from. To do this, click the Magic Select button in the upper left.

A rectangle appears around the edges of the photo. Drag the corners of the rectangle around your object to box it in. Once you have the selected area that you want to cut out from the background, click Next.

Magic Select has now created an outline around our object. It’s done a pretty good job, but not quite perfect. We can see that there’s a small area of shadow near the base of the object that Magic Select thinks is part of the object. We can refine this by clicking the Remove button, then dragging a line through the portion we want to remove.

Magic Select now understands that the portion we marked is not supposed to be part of the image. You can use both the Add and Remove buttons to tweak the selection to your liking. Once you are satisfied with the cutout, click the Done button.

Here we have our cutout image removed from the background. I’m going to copy the image to the clipboard by either clicking the Copy button on the right side or using Ctrl+C on the keyboard. You can paste your no background image directly into other programs such as an email, PowerPoint, Word document, or whatever you like.

However, what I would like to do is save this no background image as a new file so that I can use it in the future. Since a copy is already saved in the clipboard, go to Menu, then select New to create a new blank canvas.

Now click the Paste button in the upper right corner, or use Ctrl+V to paste the image onto the blank canvas. Adjust the size to fit nicely by dragging the boxes in the corners of the image and moving the image around as needed.

This is looking pretty good. However, because of the dimensions of the canvas, there’s a lot of blank space to the left and right of our object. In some cases that may not matter, but I’d rather have the image saved without extra blank space. So let’s do what I call the “Fit to Image trick”.

Paint 3D doesn’t have an option to automatically fit the canvas to the size of the selected image. However, we can do it manually in just a couple of steps. First, drag your selected image all the way down into the lower left corner as far as it can go while still remaining on the canvas.

Now click the Canvas button across the top to switch into canvas mode. Make sure the checkbox labeled Resize Image With Canvas is turned off. Then click and drag the upper right corner of the canvas down and to the left so that it fits snugly around your image.

Before letting go of the mouse, you can see that the canvas is now the perfect size for your image with no extra space. Once you release the mouse, the newly sized canvas snaps back into the middle of the screen. That’s okay. Simply click the image and drag it back onto the canvas.

Now we’re done. Let’s save it. Click on Menu, then Save As, then select the final image format. The file type should be PNG, and make sure the Transparency checkbox is checked. The checkered background behind the image indicates that the background is transparent. Click Save, and I’m going to call this image air duster transparent.

So there you have it: removing backgrounds from photos using only the built in Windows tools. If you enjoyed this video or have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment in the video, and thanks so much for watching!

UPDATE: Paint 3D may no longer be available for download with newer versions of Windows. Your mileage may vary.