Microsoft Is Testing a Background Removal Tool In Paint

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature to Windows Insiders that lets you remove an image's background in Paint with a single click. The Verge reports: To use the tool, testers can open an image with Paint and then hit the background removal button on the left side of Paint's toolbar. From there, Paint will automatically detect the subject of an image and cut away the background. Microsoft notes that you can also manually select the portion of the background that you want to remove.

Edge

[GrahamJ]

So can I just click on Edge to get rid of it?

No! Bad Microsoft

[Torodung]

Stop it. Paint is a lightweight app. For the love of God, when people said they wanted you to keep it, they meant they want a lightweight app to crop things or draw big arrows pointing to something. They do not want you to gradually make Paint into Paintshop Pro or Photoshop.

Paint is a lightweight tool for rotating and cropping images and doing very basic line art on them. That's what your users wanted you to keep and why they rejected Paint 3D. Nobody wants this, or context aware fill, or filters, or anything else. Leave Britney alone!

Just stop. Please. I'm begging you, Satya.

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[ElizabethGreene]

The good idea fairy strikes again.

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[Malays2b0wen]

I wish they would add some more filters such as being able to save a color image as greyscale image, like a B&W photograph with the same amount of detail. But aside from this, there is no reason to change Paint. That's what Photoshop is for. Unless M$ is trying the 3 E's on Adobe. :-\

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[Joce640k]

That's what your users wanted you to keep and why they rejected Paint 3D.

Nah, that wasn't why they rejected Paint 3D. That thing was awful in many, many ways.

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[DrSpock11]

Paint 3D was rejected because it shipped alongside Paint, didn't have any useful new features, and had an absolutely horrible UI.

I'm ok with them adding functionality to Paint as long as it doesn't degrade performance or tie it to the cloud (both of which these new features seem likely to do).

People have been asking them for 30 years to add layers to Paint. That one simple feature would make it 1000X more useful.

Re: No! Bad Microsoft

[retchdog]

paint is a lightweight app for bashing together clip art.

adding background removal means that it can use almost anything as clip art.

you're 180 degrees wrong. this is a brilliant feature to add to paint as well as the "snip and sketch" tool or whatever they're calling screenshot now.

How (or rather where) does this work?

[Baron_Yam]

Is this going to be processing client-side, or will it be uploading your image to Microsoft which grants Microsoft eternal and irrevocable sole license to them for whatever you just submitted for processing?

Because the entire industry seems to really, really love that second idea.

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[Malays2b0wen]

No matter how they do it, I imagine there would still be a lot of crud left over that you will have to remove manually. And it might be limited in the objects it will keep such as cars and people, or maybe just people. It will help, but you will still have to do a lot of manual work.

Re: How (or rather where) does this work?

[retchdog]

roflmao, apple has had this as a barely-touted feature of iOS for a few years, so microsoft is right on time awkwardly copying it. (the apple implementation is pretty half-baked too tbh, but thatâ(TM)s another story.)

but the results are surprisingly good! yeah, it takes a little cleanup but even then it does 90%+ of the work. it's good at cleaning contours which is most of the pain. sometimes it leaves a chunk of background, but that is relatively easy to fix.

for bashing a meme together, it's just fine

Leave. Paint. Alone.

[mccalli]

Do not destroy one of the most useful bits. And whilst I'm here, leave Notepad alone as well (with the only possible exception being allowing different line endings).

Re: Leave. Paint. Alone.

[sixminuteabs]

So no new features for anyone unless it is a feature you want. There is a term for that

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[mccalli]

Regarding Paint and Notepad? Proud luddite. I'll forgo my "except perhaps line endings" if it means they'll leave it alone completely.

They're like the vi of the Windows world. It's all gone to hell? Open it in Notepad. It's crashed and everyone's doomed? alt-prt screen, paste into Paint and draw sodding big arrow saying "I mean over here!". Quick, reliable, works.

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[sconeu]

Dude. If I had mod points, they'd be yours.