iOS 16 users are getting creative with the new background removal feature for photos
We said this a couple of months ago, and we're sticking to it now: the new background removal and image cutout feature is the most fun thing to come out of iOS 16. Yes, Lock Screen widgets and customizations are useful, but you're probably not going to tinker with them every day.
For folks who don't know about this feature, iOS 16 lets you "pick" any object from a photo and save it as a separate transparent image — just like a background removal tool. The feature is present in the system in various contexts, assisted by Apple's CoreML tech.
Now that the feature is available widely to users, they're putting it to use in different ways.
One of the more interesting use cases is that of an iOS 16 user who is cataloging his daily outfits in the Notes app. As demonstrated in a video, the user (@macaulay_flower on TikTok) used the background removal feature to grab a clip out of himself whenever he changed outfits and pasted it to a note to catalog his different looks.
I freaking love this idea — with iOS 16, this guy is saving clips of every outfit he wears in the Notes app 🤯
With background removal, you can cleanly categorize almost anything 👌 https://t.co/9fw5mtbFTG pic.twitter.com/5h20QlpuI9
— Matthew Cassinelli (@mattcassinelli) September 14, 2022
Inspired by this use case, ex-Apple employee Matthew Cassinelli then automated the process through a Siri Shortcut, which he shared on Twitter.
After installing this shortcut on your iPhone, you'll see an "Outfit of the Day" option in the Share Sheet. You can then go to any image with an outfit, hit this button from the Share Sheet, and the cutout will be saved to an eponymous note.
Best part is… you can automate this entire experience with Apple’s Shortcuts app too!
There’s a new “Remove Background from Image” step that you can tie to any other action in Shortcuts.
I built this into an “Outfit of the Day” shortcut here: https://t.co/b3L5LEiVMm pic.twitter.com/eK24qB57Ba
— Matthew Cassinelli (@mattcassinelli) September 14, 2022
This isn't the only way users are exploring this new feature.
People are finding more use cases for the background removal tool ranging from food photography to making pet collages and even making memes:
ios 16 background removal does WONDERS for food photography pic.twitter.com/vOtSEb34Nf
— sam 🗯️ (@gamsougher) September 12, 2022
aliw na aliw ako sa background removal feature ng ios 16 HAHSHWHAHAH this is the best thing i’ve done so far 😭 pic.twitter.com/EeJwO1m058
— 🦋 (@veeandwais) September 13, 2022
ATTN: people who are always cut & pasting PFP’s into group shots. iOS 16 just dropped a handy one tap background removal. Super fast way to do this on the fly w procreate pocket. @RTFKT @RTFKTcreators pic.twitter.com/R6itlhimol
— itsjustcavan.eth 🌆 (@itsjustcavan) September 15, 2022
The iOS 16 background removal feature is gonna change the meme game. pic.twitter.com/zSpkfy6LaF
— Brenden Nunes (@BrendenNunesNBA) September 14, 2022
One of our favorite use cases for this feature is to automatically catalog images into different folders -- for food, shopping, pets or memes, for example.
To that end, we made our own nifty shortcut that removes the background from an image then places it into a folder named "Background removed." You can use the "Remove Image Background" option from the Share Sheet to trigger it. It's fairly rudimentary, so you will need to manually create the folder first before using the shortcut. For creating different categories, you can simply copy the shortcut and rename it.
The background removal feature is pretty great, but it only picks up objects that are in the focus area of the photo — even if there are multiple of them. We hope Apple will introduce more advanced object separation and editing tools for collage-making in the Photos app in future versions of the feature.
