How to Remove Backgrounds in Canva

Wondering how to remove the background of a picture in Canva?

In this quick tutorial, you’ll learn how to remove a background in Canva, but first, you’ll need to subscribe to Canva Pro to access the background removal tool.

How to Remove a Background in Canva

We’ve all been there: you shot a great photo with a terrible background and then wasted precious time in Photoshop trying to remove said background. Well, no more. With Canva’s background removal tool, you can remove a background using Canva in a matter of seconds.

Step 1

Navigate to the Images in your Uploads, or click Upload files to upload the image you want to work with.

Step 2

Once you have selected your image, drag it to the whiteboard.

With the image selected, click Edit image. The image editor will open to the left of the screen, with the Background Remover tool at the top.

Step 3

Click the Background Remover tool, and in a matter of seconds your background will disappear, leaving a default transparent background. Now you know how to remove a background from a picture in Canva.

Now, every image will not be as easy as the one we used in this example. So let’s take a look at backgrounds that are a bit more complicated, like the one below.

Step 4

As you can see, the Background Remover does an excellent job of eliminating the background, but it also removed part of the desk to the right, which we didn’t want removed. This is an easy fix. We can use the Restore brush to restore the desk. Alternatively, if there was a part of the image that had not been removed satisfactorily, we could use the Erase brush to remove it.

Use the Brush size slider to adjust the size of your brush, and then brush it across the area of the image you want to restore or remove. It may be helpful to toggle Show original image on and off to keep sight of the area of the image you’re working on.

Here, the desk in the image has been restored using the Restore brush.

Step 5

Once you’re happy with your image, click Apply at the bottom left of the screen. Now you can go to File and Save or Download your image.

If you choose to download your image, you have the option of downloading it as a PNG with a transparent background, which will allow you to blend your image into a background of your choosing, or to save it as a JPG, SVG, or GIF.