Apple’s Visual Lookup feature makes it so easy to remove the cluttered background from your photos. Learn how to take advantage of this.
Need to remove the background from an image you took on your iPhone? If so, you don’t have to pay an expert to do it for you or rely on third-party photo editing apps to get the job done.
You can easily remove backgrounds from any photo right on your iPhone using the Stock Photos app without any fuss. Apple’s iOS 16 update makes it so easy and we’ll show you how.
Visual Look Up gets a major update in iOS 16
First introduced in iOS 15, Visual Look Up’s feature was to allow you to quickly get information about various landmarks, plant species, and more eye-catching objects available in an image. But as of iOS 16, Visual Look Up can do a lot more.
As long as you update your iPhone to iOS 16, you can extract or copy subjects from an image and then drag and drop or copy and paste them into other apps like Messages. And if you haven’t updated your iPhone yet, it’s time to do so. After all, Visual Look Up is just one of many useful yet hidden iOS 16 features.
Visual Look Up achieves these results thanks to the machine learning capabilities that make the feature possible. So if you’ve been relying on photo editing apps to remove background from images, it’s time to ditch them. If you have an iPad or Mac, Visual Look Up is also available in macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16.
How to remove image backgrounds in photos
Before proceeding, keep in mind that this feature only allows you to lift the subject from the background, but essentially removes the unwanted background.
Follow these simple instructions to extract objects from an image:
- Open an image in the Photos app by tapping it.
- Press and hold on the subject until you see a highlight.
- Once the entire topic is highlighted, you can directly drag and drop the highlighted topic into another app, e.g. Messages.
- You can also lift your finger to see the To copy or Part option once the topic is highlighted.
- Then tap To copy to copy and paste the subject into an app that supports media – usually the text field works. You can also use the Part option if you want to use the share menu.
The drag and drop technique may not work on all apps as iOS 16 is still fresh and developers need to update their apps. So it is always better to use the old fashioned copy and paste method.
Also keep in mind that the resulting image is usually a PNG file with a transparent background, which you can overlay another photo to completely change the background.
Visual Look Up is a game changer
Apple’s iOS 16 update brings many new features and improvements, which can make it difficult to know every little change at first. One of the most incredible additions is the ability to remove image backgrounds in the Photos app.
Visual Look Up is always at your disposal when needed. While it’s not perfect, it’s a good start and we’re excited to see how Apple improves on this feature in the future.