Fix a picture — background out, bigger, or a different shape

For anyone with a picture that is nearly right — the wrong background, too small, or the wrong shape for where it has to go.

Step by step

1
Add the picture
One picture, any shape. A phone photo is fine — it is scaled down on the way up, because these tools read at about 1500 pixels across and anything larger is upload time with no benefit.
2
Pick what needs fixing
Three buttons. Remove the background cuts the subject out onto transparency. Make it bigger returns it at four times the size without going soft. Change the shape adds more picture at the edges — useful when a square photo has to become a wide banner.
3
If you chose Change the shape, pick the shape
Wide for a header or a banner, square for a feed, tall for a story. Your picture keeps its own size in the middle and the model invents what goes around it.
4
Press the button
A background comes out in about four seconds, an enlargement in five, a shape change in about ten. One charge for the one thing you pressed, and only if it works.
5
Look at both
The result appears beside your original, so you can see exactly what changed. A cut-out is shown on a checkerboard — that pattern is how transparency is drawn on screen, and it is not part of your file.
6
Download or keep
Download saves a PNG with the transparency intact. It also saves to your Library automatically.

Tips

Remove the background works best when the subject has a clear edge. Hair against a busy background is the hard case and it handles it well; glass and smoke are genuinely difficult for anything.
Make it bigger sharpens what is already there — it does not invent detail that was never in the photo. A tiny blurry picture comes back as a larger, sharper version of that picture, not a new one.
Change the shape invents the edges, so keep anything important away from them. A face near the edge of a square ends up nearer the middle of a banner, which is usually what you want.
If you only need a different SIZE — 8.5 x 11, a Facebook banner — use Resize an Image instead. That one is about the file, costs less, and changes nothing about the picture itself.

If something goes wrong

The messages the page can show, and what to do.

“The background looks white, not transparent”: It is transparent — the checkerboard behind the result is how transparency is shown on screen. Download it and drop it onto a colored slide to see. If you need it on white, put it on white yourself; a PNG with transparency is the more useful file to keep.
“Make it bigger did not make it much sharper”: It sharpens what the photo already holds. If the original is very small or badly out of focus there is nothing there to sharpen — a screenshot of a screenshot is the usual culprit.
“The invented edges look wrong”: Try a different shape, or crop the picture tighter first so there is less to invent. A wide shape from a tall photo is the biggest stretch, because it has to make up the most.
“Could not reach the maker — try again.”: Your connection dropped for a moment. Check you’re online and press the button again. A job that fails is never charged.

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