I’ve spent way too long erasing backgrounds manually—and trust me, AI isn’t always the miracle it claims to be. After testing 11 so-called “smart” tools, I found one that didn’t completely destroy fine edges, fur, or shadows.

Though it’s possible to remove backgrounds from a smartphone, I used my computer instead. To run this experiment, I used this photo:

First, I tried Creative Fabrica’s background remover. I didn’t like how I couldn’t drag and drop the image from the homepage; instead, I needed to click on the Add Your Image Here button. This felt a bit misleading, as the area around the button looked like a place you could drag and drop. Nonetheless, I was still intrigued to see how this tool would work.

Creative Fabrica removed much of the dog’s legs, and I couldn’t download the image without signing up for a free trial. Both of these irritated me more than the button on the previous page, and all three of these reasons mean Creative Fabrica’s background remover was the worst I tried.

The only reason I haven’t placed Pixian’s background remover at the bottom of the list is because they at least weren’t misleading. In terms of editing, I was very disappointed. The app removed most of the background, but it also deleted large parts of the dog’s body.

My picture was also downsized because I didn’t pay for the service, which I expected. I imagine the paid version is better than the free one, but I wasn’t convinced enough to spend my money on it.

Canva is my favorite design tool, and I had some free credits to play with Canva’s Background Removal feature.

The software removed the dog’s back legs, which was very annoying. While the tool removed most of the background around the main subject, it left the grass in front of the dog. I can see the potential as Canva’s software receives more information, but it’s mediocre at best for now.

Despite Photoshop being paid, I think it’s one of the best photo-editing tools. Since I was using a paid tool, I wondered if I’d have access to more advanced technology that could detect intricate details that others couldn’t. Surprisingly, Photoshop’s background remover was one of the worst I tried.

Photoshop removed one of the dog’s front paws and also deleted its back legs. Moreover, it didn’t touch the grass in front of the animal. While it was good at cutting most of the background out close to the dog’s body, it fell short in several key areas.

Given how good Adobe’s tools normally are for editing photos, I was surprised at how badly it performed with AI background removal. I was certain either Express or Photoshop would be my top pick before running this experiment, but Express was only slightly better than Photoshop.

The software at least didn’t remove the back leg this time, which was progress. However, I felt like the final result was sloppy. Adobe Express didn’t cut around the edges too cleanly, and for some reason, the grass in front looks stranger in this edit than others.

Given I was using the paid version of Adobe Express, too, I expected better.

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Cutout.pro let me remove backgrounds in my pictures for free, but I needed credits to download a high-definition version of my edit. After removing the background, I could replace it with a different color if I wanted; while perhaps useful for generating memes, I didn’t think it was useful for my experiment.

The quality was quite poor, and the edit felt lazy to me. Around the dog’s feet, I noticed Cutout.pro didn’t remove as much grass as it should have. The app did let me rate my edit, at least; hopefully, it can use this information to improve the product.

Next, I tried Removebg. I didn’t need to sign up for an account to use the background remover, which made the process simpler. Within a few seconds, the app had finished clearing the background.

For a free app, this was a decent attempt. However, I noticed the grass between the dog’s legs wasn’t removed. The app might have gotten these mixed up with the animal’s fur, and it’s also not technically the background. So, for simple edits, Removebg seems to be a solid choice.

One annoyance with Removebg is that I could only download previews unless I got a paid subscription. However, I worked around this problem by using Canva to resize my picture.

AI Ease is another free background remover, and to access this tool, I simply had to click Remove Background on the homepage. Here’s the end result:

AI Ease took around 10 seconds to edit my image, which was longer than Removebg. It did a reasonable job; I noticed the tool removed the grass between the dog’s legs and in front of it. In hindsight, I’d have chosen an image where the foreground didn’t blend in with the main subject; not having the grass there looks arguably even weirder.

When exporting my image, AI Ease lets me download a higher-quality option than Removebg—without needing to pay for a subscription.

Pixelcut was my next attempt, and I immediately liked how intuitive its interface felt. Some background removers I’ve used have a small delay when uploading images (or will open them in a new tab). Neither of those were issues with Pixelcut.

The app removed my picture’s background within a few seconds and allowed me to prompt a new background. While I didn’t do this, I was quite happy with the results. Besides prompting new backgrounds, I could see various suggestions in my app toolbar.

I could download an image in preview resolution without signing up for an account. However, I would have needed to create a profile for full-resolution downloads.

I like Pixlr’s ordinary photo editor and have often used it to resize pictures. So, I was interested to see if its background remover was on the same level. The resolution was higher than many tools I’ve used, for sure.

Pixlr left a lot of the background close to the dog’s body. It looked like the tool tried being too safe to not remove anything it shouldn’t have; while I respect this, the edit was sloppy as a result. Moreover, the grass between the dog’s legs wasn’t removed.

I’ve used Photoroom for adjusting multiple pictures before, and I think it’s one of the best free online photo editors. I was similarly impressed with the AI background remover, which was one of the AI tools I could access without needing a paid subscription.

I like how Photoroom removed most of the background around the dog quite well, though it did eat into its fur at certain points. Even though I could only download a lower-resolution image, the quality was still quite good. If I wanted to, I could’ve changed the color of the background before saving my picture. Given its responsiveness, Photroom was one of the easiest ways to remove the background from a picture.

Photoroom did the best job of all the AI background removers I tried; none of the others were truly amazing. I would perhaps have gotten different results with a different main subject and a flat background; many of the tools seemed confused by what the grass was and where the dog was standing. Still, where they faltered, Photoroom didn’t.