How to Remove a Person from a Photo

You finally visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and ask a kind stranger to snap the perfect shot of you “holding it up.” Excited, you take back your phone, only to realize that someone behind you inadvertently ruined the photo. 

A few years ago, only a Photoshop whiz could’ve salvaged your vacation photo. Luckily, today you have a plethora of tools at your disposal, so you can not only retouch it yourself, but do it quickly and effortlessly.

Whatever your reason for wanting to remove a person from a photo—improve composition, edit out photobombers and distractions or change the focus of an image—this guide will help you do it in just a few simple steps. 

Adobe Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature is one of the best tools for the job, so that will be the focus of this tutorial. However, if you don’t have access to Photoshop or want to remove people from photos on the go, we’ll discuss a few other options, as well. 

Let’s save some photos! 

How to Remove a Person from a Photo Using Adobe Photoshop

With Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature, you can remove unwanted people from photos in just a few clicks. This powerful photo editing software removes anything you select and automatically generates a new photo background to replace it. 

Let’s take a look at how this is done in more detail. We’ll use the image below as an example and remove the first person from the left. 

Step 1: Duplicate the Background Layer

No matter what you’re doing in Photoshop, your first step should always be to make a copy of the original image. This way, you can continue with non-destructive editing—if you make mistakes, you can always go back and restart. 

In the Layers panel on the right-hand side of your Photoshop workspace, find the Background layer. Right-click on it and select Duplicate Layer. In the window that pops up, type out a name for your duplicate background and click OK. 

Step 2: Duplicate and Isolate Anything You Want to Keep (Optional)

This step is only necessary in some cases. To help you decide whether or not it’s needed, it’s important to understand how Photoshop’s Generative Fill works. 

When removing a person from a photo, the goal is to create a seamless transition between the original background and the new background that AI generates to fill the gap. In order to do this, you need to make your selection slightly larger than the person you want to remove. AI can then completely replace everything you selected and make sure it blends with the rest of the image. 

If the person you want to remove is overlapping with other people or important objects, you will inevitably need to include a bit of them in your selection. If you don’t want AI to reconstruct those parts, there are a few things you can do to keep them intact. 

Otherwise, if the person you want to remove isn’t overlapping with anyone or anything, or you don’t mind if AI changes a small part of that person or object, you can go ahead and skip to Step 3. 

In our case, let’s remove the person on the left without affecting the person in front of them. 

1. Select the layer “Background copy” you created earlier. 
2. Use the Lasso tool to roughly select the area around the person you’d like to keep. We’ll be using Photoshop’s Select Subject tool, so the goal here is to create a selection where the person you’d like to keep clearly stands out as the main subject. Copy this selection. 
3. Click the plus icon in the bottom right corner of the Layers panel to create a new layer. Paste your selection here. Hide any other layers so you can see the next steps clearly. 
4. As long as the Lasso tool is still selected, you should see a Contextual Task Bar floating on the screen (if you don’t, go to Window and make sure it’s checked off). In the bar, click Select Subject. 
5. If the selection isn’t entirely accurate, you can click Modify Selection > Select and Mask to make manual adjustments. Change View to Overlay so you can see what you’re selecting. Don’t worry about accurately selecting the entire person—it’s only important that you create a clean edge where they overlap with the person you want to remove. 
6. In the Contextual Task Bar, click the Invert Selection icon and hit Delete on your keyboard. You should now have the person you want to keep without anything else in the background. Hide this layer for now, and let’s go back to working on the “Background copy” layer. 

‌Step 3: Use Generative Fill to Edit Out the Person You’d Like to Remove 

1. Make sure your “Background copy” layer is selected.
2. Use the Lasso tool to roughly select the area around the person you’d like to remove.
3. In the Contextual Task Bar, select Generative Fill. When removing objects in Photoshop, you don’t need to type any text prompts. Simply leave this blank and hit Generate. 

Step 4: Choose a Variation You Like

Photoshop’s AI technology will automatically generate a replacement for the person you want removed. It provides three options at a time, so if you’re not quite happy with the first option, use the Contextual Task Bar to cycle through the other two options. If you still can’t find a variation you like, feel free to hit Generate again, which will create three new options. Do this as many times as you’d like. 

Step 5: Restore Any Overlapping Areas (Optional)

If you completed Step 2, now is the time to restore those areas you saved earlier. For example, in the image above, a portion of the person’s shoulder and denim jacket were modified. In most cases, this will go completely unnoticed, but if you’re adamant about maintaining the original, then let’s restore it. 

To do this, simply unhide the layer you created in step 2—the one that contains the original subject with a transparent background—and make sure it’s sitting above all other layers. If it extends past the AI-generated parts and covers them perfectly, then there’s nothing else that needs to be done. 

However, sometimes AI creates a variation of the subject that extends further than it originally did. If that’s the case, then you can select the parts that overextend and generate some more variations until you find one that works. 

In the example below, the image on the left shows the ideal generated variation: the denim jacket is missing entirely, and the person’s shoulder is much smaller than it originally was. When the original subject is layered on top (image on the right), it blends seamlessly with the new background and no extra elements peek through. 

Step 6: Save and Export Your Edited Photo

Be sure to save the Photoshop file if you need to access it later and make further edits. To export your photo, go to File > Export > Export As and select your preferred file type. 

And that’s it!

Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature is incredibly powerful, but it may take a few tries to get it right. Feel free to play around with it until you find what works. 

Alternative Tools and Methods for Removing People

If you don’t have access to Photoshop or simply prefer a more beginner-friendly tool, consider the alternative methods below: 

1. Adobe Lightroom

Like Photoshop, Lightroom uses Generative AI to replace or remove objects from photos. It’s a little more user-friendly, since all you need to do is paint over the area you want to remove with a brush. The results it yields are very similar to Photoshop, though you won’t be able to preserve original elements in overlapping areas. 

2. Google Photos App

The Google Photos app offers an AI-based object removal tool called Magic Eraser. With it, you can simply tap on the person you’d like to remove and let AI generate a few variations for you to choose from. It’s not as powerful as Photoshop or Lightroom, but it does a decent job in a pinch. The app is available on both Android and iOS. 

3. Online Tools

There are plenty of browser-based tools out there that can help remove unwanted objects or people from your photos online. Many of them are free or offer a free trial. Simply give it a Google search and try out a few options. Their capabilities and results vary, but depending on what you’d like to remove, you may find something that fits your needs. 

FAQs

What's the best method to remove someone from a picture?

Adobe Photoshop’s Generative Fill is a popular option, as it is quick and yields great results. The best part is, you can use it even if you’ve never done any editing in Photoshop before. 

Can I use AI to remove people from photos?

Absolutely! Most photo editing tools available today rely on AI to remove people and objects from photos. 

Can I edit out more than one person from a photo?

Of course! No matter which photo editor you choose, they’ll let you outline, click, tap or brush over the areas you want to remove. This means you can edit out as many people or objects as you’d like. 

What is the best app for removing people from photos?

iPhones with iOS 16 or later have a built-in tool called “Object Eraser”, while Android users can achieve great results with the Google Photos app. You can also try other options like TouchRetouch, PicsArt or Snapseed. 

How do I remove a person from a picture for free?

Although tools like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are paid, there are plenty of mobile and browser-based applications that will let you remove people from photos for free. Keep in mind that you may need to sign up for an account or a free trial. 

How can I remove the background in a photo?

The same tools that let you remove people and objects from photos tend to also come with a background remover. For example, Adobe Photoshop has a powerful “Select Subject” feature, as well as manual tools, to help you isolate people and objects in the foreground and delete the rest. For more details, be sure to check out this guide on how to remove backgrounds in Photoshop. 

Transform Your Photos

Thanks to AI technology, removing people from photos is now easier and more accessible than ever. Whether it’s Photoshop, Lightroom, a web-based program or a mobile app, choose your favorite photo editing tool and give it a try!

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Written By

Sayana Lam

Sayana is a musician, writer and graphic designer based in Toronto, Canada.

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