Pixelcut intelligently makes removing a photo’s background as simple as swiping to the right
Price: Free
Premium: $10/£10 per month
Version: 0.11.1
Size: 69.7 MB
Seller: Circular, LLC
Platform: iPhone & iPad
Years ago, removing a background from an image might have seemed daunting to those of us unskilled in the dark art of Photoshop. Then the App Store came along, and zapping away a photo’s background became easier and easier. Cue Pixelcut, which can isolate the subject of an image with a familiar swipe to the right.
Not dissimilar to PhotoRoom (which we’ve previously reviewed and will return to later), Pixelcut’s headline feature is simple, smart, and incredibly effective. Serve the app a photo – either captured on your device, chosen from the Photos library, or downloaded from the Web – and the app can remove (and replace) its background. You can even layer up these cutouts to create a kind of photo collage.
Doing so is as easy as it is quick – simply swipe your finger across a slider and Pixelcut will accurately erase the background – even tricky ones, like the image below:
Background, be gone!
From here, you have the option of editing the image further. Pixelcut uses a “tap to refine” approach, where you simply tap on the area of the image you’d like to change before being presented with a range of options. You can tap to change the background, canvas, or the image itself. By adding layers, it’s also possible to complement your image with text, stickers, objects, or hand-drawn scribbles.
The ability to type text along a curve defined by a finger-swipe is a really nice touch, too.
Resize the canvas.
The finished product can then be shared – you can even choose between a PNG or JPG file format (which is a nice touch).
Also available in Pixelcut is an impressive range of backgrounds, templates, and collages. In this respect, the app really begins to set itself apart from rival PhotoRoom. You can easily create some smart-looking, professional designs in Pixelcut which would look perfect in a social media campaign, magazine, or business flyer. The selection of templates on offer is a big selling point here.
Backgrounds, templates, and collages.
A Discover tab lets users search for pre-existing designs which they can modify using their own image – just plug in a search term and see what Pixelcut can find. A third and final Projects tab lets you tweak or modify existing projects.
The one possible downside is that while PhotoRoom’s free service watermarks its edited images for users, Pixelcut instead grants you a limited number of cutouts – a handful to start with a 24-hour wait to refresh your allowance. Alternatively, you can pay up for pricy additional credits or commit subscribing for Pixelcut Unlimited. This will set you back either $10/£10 per month, or half that if you commit to a year.
Search to find more.
The benefit to choosing Pixelcut Unlimited, however, is that you get access to batch editing, which pro users will undoubtedly appreciate when creating a suite of similar edits.
Pixelcut is an impressive app. Its backgrounds, templates, and collages place it one step ahead of PhotoRoom. And though its pro features are a little pricy, you don’t need to spend a dime to give it a try.