Insider Background Removal in Paint begins rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders

Dru2 · Sep 8, 2023

atinfo said:
Isn't good enough to beat Photoshop.

Nor was it ever intended to compete with Photoshop. C'mon man

Winuser · Sep 8, 2023

Dru2 said:
Nor was it ever intended to compete with Photoshop. C'mon man

Comparing a free program to a program that cost $36.00 a month is nowhere near being fair.

Dru2 · Sep 8, 2023

Winuser said:
Comparing a free program to a program that cost $36.00 a month is nowhere near being fair.

Tell that to the person that said it

With that, claiming the program (Photoshop) is "$36.00 a month" is also nowhere being fair... or accurate

And I know this because I'm paying the monthly subscription. And NO, I'm NOT getting a discount.

Winuser · Sep 8, 2023

Dru2 said:
Tell that to the person that said it

With that, claiming the program (Photoshop) is "$36.00 a month" is also nowhere being fair... or accurate

And I know this because I'm paying the monthly subscription. And NO, I'm NOT getting a discount.

You better tell Photoshop because when I looked it up this is what I found. Creative Cloud pricing and membership business plans | Adobe Creative Cloud

Dru2 · Sep 8, 2023

Winuser said:
You better tell Photoshop because when I looked it up this is what I found. Creative Cloud pricing and membership business plans | Adobe Creative Cloud

Yeah, I guess my credit card charges must be wrong

Anyway, you're looking at the "Business plans". Look here (Individual) - Adobe Creative Cloud Plans, Pricing, and Membership. All the "Photoshop" (Photoshop/Lightroom) plans are ALL under 22 bucks. I'm paying $9.99 a month for the "Photography" Plan (20gig storage)

antspants · Sep 8, 2023

Winuser said:
I just tested removing the background in a photo. It actually did a good job.

Out of interest… How complicated was the image? Was it a background with a person in the foreground? Did you try it with detailed foreground like hair etc?

I understand this isn’t directed at a professionals but is quite honestly, terrible, in my opinion.

MisterEd · Sep 9, 2023

atinfo said:
I hope they add an option to minimize/hide it.

I second that. That is why I installed the classic version of Paint on my Windows 11 laptop. At least it could hide/show the toolbar. Microsoft just doesn't understand how hard the current version of Paint is to use on a laptop. The ribbon takes up too much valuable screen space. BTW, I usually show the ribbon on Word but occasionally hide it when needed.

I am skeptical how well the new version of Paint will be able to remove the background on a photo. I have Photoshop Elements 11 and haven't figured out how to do that with it.

atinfo · Sep 9, 2023

Winuser said:
It actually did a good job.

To be fair, YES!

Winuser said:
Does anyone know how to replace the background in paint? Taking a quick look I didn't see any option.

They haven't implemented the replace background option yet.

Dru2 said:
Nor was it ever intended to compete with Photoshop. C'mon man

Even Adobe realized the hand tools have come to an end! Photoshop in recent years added just AI new features like AI Filters, AI Selection, and AI Remove Tool (IMO the last one does a great job). AI era has been fired up for the new generation who was born with AI! I don't like to say it, but we are all considered retired (I haven't even started my career yet!)

antspants said:
Out of interest… How complicated was the image? Was it a background with a person in the foreground? Did you try it with detailed foreground like hair etc?

I understand this isn’t directed at a professionals but is quite honestly, terrible, in my opinion.

The image is a Windows 7 original wallpaper! It has (somehow) a good contrast between the subject (flying man with feathers) and the background (blue sky and clouds). AFAIK (also as Adobe said), the AI algorithm works perfectly with high-contrast photos/images. You need a better job, just give it a focused subject against a blurry background. But about hair, it is absolutely cripple. Look at my example, a woman in the street (post #4).

Windows 7 wallpaper:

Photoshop subject selection (background remove) job:

MisterEd said:
I second that. That is why I installed the classic version of Paint on my Windows 11 laptop. At least it could hide/show the toolbar.

I have both of them (Classic Paint and New Paint).

MisterEd said:
Microsoft just doesn't understand how hard the current version of Paint is to use on a laptop. The ribbon takes up too much valuable screen space. BTW, I usually show the ribbon on Word but occasionally hide it when needed.

Microsoft designers (UI designers) work on their 5K 30-inch monitor (Surface Studio and Surface Hub 50-inch). They don't even know there is something like an 11-inch laptop (out of their studio)! Class differences... :woozy:

MisterEd said:
I have Photoshop Elements 11 and haven't figured out how to do that with it.

I didn't work with Ps Element for more than five years. Maybe this link helps:

Remove a Background Using Photoshop Elements

Remove a Background Using Photoshop Elements: An overview, instructions, and a video lesson showing how to remove the background from photos and images.

www.teachucomp.com

antspants · Sep 9, 2023

atinfo said:
The image is a Windows 7 original wallpaper! It has (somehow) a good contrast between the subject (flying man with feathers) and the background (blue sky and clouds). AFAIK (also as Adobe said), the AI algorithm works perfectly with high-contrast photos/images. You need a better job, just give it a focused subject against a blurry background. But about hair, it is absolutely cripple. Look at my example, a woman in the street (post #4).

Sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the "Photograph" winuser tried.

Winuser · Sep 9, 2023

antspants said:
Out of interest… How complicated was the image? Was it a background with a person in the foreground? Did you try it with detailed foreground like hair etc?

I understand this isn’t directed at a professionals but is quite honestly, terrible, in my opinion.

View attachment 70416

It was a pic of my wife's great neice and her baby. There was a lot in the background that was removed. I was surprised at how good it did. It wasn't perfect but it was good. I just wanted to test it and chose that pic because of the crowded background.

asturias7 · Sep 10, 2023

For those who aren't on the Canary or Dev channels but still want this Removal Tool, you can download it here (it's the Official Msixbundle):

59.35 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

gaffar · Sep 13, 2023

SlicEnDicE said:
Dear GOD, is MS trying to kill a perfectly good, simple and lightweight app with all this nonsense. Stick it in Paint3D instead and leave mspaint.exe be.

Why Microsoft shouldn't introduce tabs in MS Paint, Media Player, MS Office 2024, Clipchamp.... etc. by default as they started to use tabs in Explorer in Windows 11 22H2.

SmokeMe · Sep 13, 2023

It sure would be nice if MS put access to the quick launch toolbar (save as .jpg) back to a choice in paint.

Ghot · Sep 13, 2023

asturias7 said:
For those who aren't on the Canary or Dev channels but still want this Removal Tool, you can download it here (it's the Official Msixbundle):

59.35 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

Tested.... it scans clean (locally and at Virustotal), and it works. Just double click it to update PAINT.

It works best on pics with one or two distinct (not overlapping), people...

Total fail on this...

Sort of OK on this...

Remove Background tool shown in RED box...

atinfo · Sep 14, 2023

Whenever you see a good selection of hair and DoF (depth of field), you can rely on that selection tool!

As I realized (by testing its feature on many hair selections), Paint does some fake depth of field effect to create a reasonable selection!

I'm wondering how its selection process is faster than Photoshop, but the selection has an opaque (white) background and "save as PNG" exports the image with the white background!

More information about its (Microsoft Paint Remove Background) algorithm:

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/riverar/a65b87b33d89c00df2db253d4e3d2339/raw/2e8337ae84042b437503599f09a7ca24f9e166d0/seg.onnx.svg