Procreate's own documentation says it has no dedicated one-tap background remover, but there are three ways to get close. The fastest is to open Procreate in split screen with Photos, then press and hold a photo until the subject lifts and drag it onto your canvas, which drops the subject in without its background. For flat or solid backgrounds, use Automatic Selection and then Cut. For complex subjects, trace with Freehand Selection and apply a layer mask.

Does Procreate Have an Automatic Background Remover?

Not as a single named tool. Procreate is an illustration app, and its selection tools were built for painting workflows, not photo cutouts. That is why you'll see three approaches in tutorials:

1. Drag-and-drop from Photos: the closest thing to "automatic." The background is removed as you drag the subject in; Procreate just receives it.
2. Automatic Selection: a color-based selection you tap and adjust with a threshold.
3. Freehand Selection plus a mask: manual, but precise and reversible.

Which one you choose depends on how clean the source image is and how much edge quality you need downstream.

Method 1: Drag a Subject In From Photos

This is the quickest route and works well for clear subjects such as people, products, or objects with a defined edge against the background.

1. In the Procreate gallery, tap New and create a canvas. Match the size to your final use. If you plan to print, work at 300 DPI.
2. Swipe up from the bottom of the iPad to bring up the Dock. Press and hold the Photos icon and drag it to the right edge of the screen to open it in split screen alongside Procreate.
3. Find the photo you want.
4. Press and hold on the subject. When you see the highlight animation ripple across the image, the subject has been isolated.
5. Drag the lifted subject onto your Procreate canvas. It arrives with the background already removed.
6. Resize and reposition with the Transform tool.

Limitations: You have no threshold control and no preview of the matte before it lands. Fine hair, motion blur, translucent objects, and low-contrast edges can come in rough. If the result is close but not clean, don't throw it away. Use it as a base and refine it with Method 3.

Method 2: Automatic Selection for Solid or Near-Solid Backgrounds

Automatic Selection is a color-based selection, so it works best on white or flat backgrounds, such as scanned sketches, product shots on seamless paper, or printable sheets.

1. Import your image and make sure its layer is active.
2. Tap the Selection tool (the S icon) and choose Automatic at the bottom. Make sure Add mode is on.
3. Tap the background. Keep your Pencil or finger down and drag left or right to adjust the threshold. Increase it to catch more of the background, and decrease it if the selection starts to eat into your subject.
4. Remove the selected area. Tap the Actions wrench and choose Cut. If you prefer to keep the original, tap Invert to select the subject instead, then choose Copy & Paste to put the cutout on a new layer.
5. Hide the original and background layers to check the transparency.
6. Clean up leftover specks with the Eraser, using a hard brush for crisp edges.

Common pitfalls:

• Textured backgrounds: watercolor paper, noise, or gradients make it hard to find a threshold that removes the background without nibbling the subject. Expect to redo the selection a few times.
• Whites inside the subject: a white highlight inside a white-background image can get selected too. Switch to Subtract mode or use Method 3.
• "It deleted my whole picture": some users report this when using Clear on a selection. Choosing Cut instead worked for one user on Procreate's forum. Also confirm the selection outline is visible and that you're on the image layer.

Method 3: Freehand Selection and a Layer Mask

When the automatic options fail, trace the subject yourself. It takes longer, but a mask keeps the edit non-destructive, so you can fix mistakes later.

1. Duplicate your image layer and hide the original. This gives you a safe copy to return to.
2. Open Selection, choose Freehand, and make sure Add is active.
3. Zoom in and trace around the subject. Tap with two fingers to undo the last stretch of the path if you slip.
4. Finish the selection either by leaving the loop unclosed or by tapping the dot at the start point. Be aware that closing it with the dot can turn your image black or white, which you can undo with a two-finger tap.
5. Open the Layers panel, tap the image layer, and choose Mask. The selection becomes the mask.
6. Paint on the mask with black to hide more or white to reveal more, and refine edges with a soft or hard brush as needed.

The advantage over cutting is that nothing is permanently deleted. If you find halo pixels later, you can paint them out of the mask without re-importing.

Tips for Cleaner Cutouts

• Work large. Resolution matters more than anything else for edge quality. Don't shrink the image before you cut it out.
• Zoom in for edges. Check the cutout at 200% or more against both a light and a dark background layer. Fringes that vanish on white will show up on dark.
• Keep the mask. Procreate's masks make it easier to adjust later than a destructive cut does.
• Export as PNG for transparency. Use PNG for single images. If you need to keep layers, export as PSD.
• Don't merge too early. Keep the cutout on its own layer so you can swap backgrounds or adjust it in your compositing app.

Taking Procreate Cutouts Into After Effects

If the cutout is headed for motion work, export it as a PNG or PSD and import it into After Effects. A few habits help:

• Check the edges against your actual background in the comp, not just the Procreate checkerboard.
• If you see light halos, an edge-choking or slight edge-contraction step can help, but it's better to fix the mask in Procreate when possible.
• Keep your canvas dimensions at or above your comp resolution so you aren't scaling up a small cutout.

This works well for stills, illustrated elements, stickers, and cut-paper style animation assets. It breaks down when you need a background removed from moving footage or from an entire sequence of frames, because Procreate is a still-image tool and cutting out each frame by hand doesn't scale.

When Procreate Isn't the Right Tool: Video and Sequences

Procreate's selection tools are fine for the occasional illustration asset. They are not designed for production cutouts, especially on footage, or on sequences where edges must stay consistent from frame to frame.

For that kind of work, Styleframe includes a Remove Background tool as part of a wider set built for professional artistic control. The toolset includes keyframe-driven Frames-to-Video, Restyle and Ink-and-Paint (reference-driven style transfer), 2D-to-3D, Turntable, and 4K Upscale. Generations are driven by your reference images, video clips, and keyframes rather than a single prompt, and iteration is non-destructive, so you can step back and try again without losing earlier results.

The practical benefit for motion designers and compositors is pipeline fit. Styleframe exports image sequences, so the results can drop into an existing After Effects or Nuke comp. You keep your compositing workflow and use Styleframe for the generation and cleanup steps that would otherwise take hours by hand.

A sensible split looks like this:

• Use Procreate for hand-drawn assets, scanned artwork, and quick one-off cutouts you plan to refine by hand.
• Use Styleframe when the source is video or a sequence, when you want to stay in a reference- and keyframe-driven process, or when the cutout feeds a larger pipeline that ends in After Effects or Nuke.
• Finish in your compositor with your usual matte refinement, color matching, and edge treatment.

Quick Comparison of the Methods

FAQ

Is there a Remove Background button in Procreate? Procreate's help documentation says there is no dedicated single tool for it. The drag-from-Photos trick is the closest automatic option.

Why does Automatic Selection leave jagged edges? It selects by color similarity, so anti-aliased or textured edges rarely fall cleanly on one threshold. Raise the threshold slightly, then finish with the Eraser or a mask.

Why did my whole image disappear when I cleared the selection? Some users report this when using Clear. Try Cut instead, re-check the selection outline, make sure you tapped the background, and confirm you're on the right layer before cutting.

Can I remove a background from a video in Procreate? Not practically. Procreate is built around still images and painting, so video and long frame sequences are better handled in a tool designed for that.

Procreate's own documentation says it has no dedicated one-tap background remover, but there are three ways to get close. The fastest is to open Procreate in split screen with Photos, then press and hold a photo until the subject lifts and drag it onto your canvas, which drops the subject in without its background. For flat or solid backgrounds, use Automatic Selection and then Cut. For complex subjects, trace with Freehand Selection and apply a layer mask.

Does Procreate Have an Automatic Background Remover?

Not as a single named tool. Procreate is an illustration app, and its selection tools were built for painting workflows, not photo cutouts. That is why you'll see three approaches in tutorials:

1. Drag-and-drop from Photos: the closest thing to "automatic." The background is removed as you drag the subject in; Procreate just receives it.
2. Automatic Selection: a color-based selection you tap and adjust with a threshold.
3. Freehand Selection plus a mask: manual, but precise and reversible.

Which one you choose depends on how clean the source image is and how much edge quality you need downstream.

Method 1: Drag a Subject In From Photos

This is the quickest route and works well for clear subjects such as people, products, or objects with a defined edge against the background.

1. In the Procreate gallery, tap New and create a canvas. Match the size to your final use. If you plan to print, work at 300 DPI.
2. Swipe up from the bottom of the iPad to bring up the Dock. Press and hold the Photos icon and drag it to the right edge of the screen to open it in split screen alongside Procreate.
3. Find the photo you want.
4. Press and hold on the subject. When you see the highlight animation ripple across the image, the subject has been isolated.
5. Drag the lifted subject onto your Procreate canvas. It arrives with the background already removed.
6. Resize and reposition with the Transform tool.

Limitations: You have no threshold control and no preview of the matte before it lands. Fine hair, motion blur, translucent objects, and low-contrast edges can come in rough. If the result is close but not clean, don't throw it away. Use it as a base and refine it with Method 3.

Method 2: Automatic Selection for Solid or Near-Solid Backgrounds

Automatic Selection is a color-based selection, so it works best on white or flat backgrounds, such as scanned sketches, product shots on seamless paper, or printable sheets.

1. Import your image and make sure its layer is active.
2. Tap the Selection tool (the S icon) and choose Automatic at the bottom. Make sure Add mode is on.
3. Tap the background. Keep your Pencil or finger down and drag left or right to adjust the threshold. Increase it to catch more of the background, and decrease it if the selection starts to eat into your subject.
4. Remove the selected area. Tap the Actions wrench and choose Cut. If you prefer to keep the original, tap Invert to select the subject instead, then choose Copy & Paste to put the cutout on a new layer.
5. Hide the original and background layers to check the transparency.
6. Clean up leftover specks with the Eraser, using a hard brush for crisp edges.

Common pitfalls:

• Textured backgrounds: watercolor paper, noise, or gradients make it hard to find a threshold that removes the background without nibbling the subject. Expect to redo the selection a few times.
• Whites inside the subject: a white highlight inside a white-background image can get selected too. Switch to Subtract mode or use Method 3.
• "It deleted my whole picture": some users report this when using Clear on a selection. Choosing Cut instead worked for one user on Procreate's forum. Also confirm the selection outline is visible and that you're on the image layer.

Method 3: Freehand Selection and a Layer Mask

When the automatic options fail, trace the subject yourself. It takes longer, but a mask keeps the edit non-destructive, so you can fix mistakes later.

1. Duplicate your image layer and hide the original. This gives you a safe copy to return to.
2. Open Selection, choose Freehand, and make sure Add is active.
3. Zoom in and trace around the subject. Tap with two fingers to undo the last stretch of the path if you slip.
4. Finish the selection either by leaving the loop unclosed or by tapping the dot at the start point. Be aware that closing it with the dot can turn your image black or white, which you can undo with a two-finger tap.
5. Open the Layers panel, tap the image layer, and choose Mask. The selection becomes the mask.
6. Paint on the mask with black to hide more or white to reveal more, and refine edges with a soft or hard brush as needed.

The advantage over cutting is that nothing is permanently deleted. If you find halo pixels later, you can paint them out of the mask without re-importing.

Tips for Cleaner Cutouts

• Work large. Resolution matters more than anything else for edge quality. Don't shrink the image before you cut it out.
• Zoom in for edges. Check the cutout at 200% or more against both a light and a dark background layer. Fringes that vanish on white will show up on dark.
• Keep the mask. Procreate's masks make it easier to adjust later than a destructive cut does.
• Export as PNG for transparency. Use PNG for single images. If you need to keep layers, export as PSD.
• Don't merge too early. Keep the cutout on its own layer so you can swap backgrounds or adjust it in your compositing app.

Taking Procreate Cutouts Into After Effects

If the cutout is headed for motion work, export it as a PNG or PSD and import it into After Effects. A few habits help:

• Check the edges against your actual background in the comp, not just the Procreate checkerboard.
• If you see light halos, an edge-choking or slight edge-contraction step can help, but it's better to fix the mask in Procreate when possible.
• Keep your canvas dimensions at or above your comp resolution so you aren't scaling up a small cutout.

This works well for stills, illustrated elements, stickers, and cut-paper style animation assets. It breaks down when you need a background removed from moving footage or from an entire sequence of frames, because Procreate is a still-image tool and cutting out each frame by hand doesn't scale.

When Procreate Isn't the Right Tool: Video and Sequences

Procreate's selection tools are fine for the occasional illustration asset. They are not designed for production cutouts, especially on footage, or on sequences where edges must stay consistent from frame to frame.

For that kind of work, Styleframe includes a Remove Background tool as part of a wider set built for professional artistic control. The toolset includes keyframe-driven Frames-to-Video, Restyle and Ink-and-Paint (reference-driven style transfer), 2D-to-3D, Turntable, and 4K Upscale. Generations are driven by your reference images, video clips, and keyframes rather than a single prompt, and iteration is non-destructive, so you can step back and try again without losing earlier results.

The practical benefit for motion designers and compositors is pipeline fit. Styleframe exports image sequences, so the results can drop into an existing After Effects or Nuke comp. You keep your compositing workflow and use Styleframe for the generation and cleanup steps that would otherwise take hours by hand.

A sensible split looks like this:

• Use Procreate for hand-drawn assets, scanned artwork, and quick one-off cutouts you plan to refine by hand.
• Use Styleframe when the source is video or a sequence, when you want to stay in a reference- and keyframe-driven process, or when the cutout feeds a larger pipeline that ends in After Effects or Nuke.
• Finish in your compositor with your usual matte refinement, color matching, and edge treatment.

Quick Comparison of the Methods

FAQ

Is there a Remove Background button in Procreate? Procreate's help documentation says there is no dedicated single tool for it. The drag-from-Photos trick is the closest automatic option.

Why does Automatic Selection leave jagged edges? It selects by color similarity, so anti-aliased or textured edges rarely fall cleanly on one threshold. Raise the threshold slightly, then finish with the Eraser or a mask.

Why did my whole image disappear when I cleared the selection? Some users report this when using Clear. Try Cut instead, re-check the selection outline, make sure you tapped the background, and confirm you're on the right layer before cutting.

Can I remove a background from a video in Procreate? Not practically. Procreate is built around still images and painting, so video and long frame sequences are better handled in a tool designed for that.