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Show HN: AI Background Remover

102 points by vvoyer 5y ago

apurvak 5y ago
pretty cool!
PMan74 5y ago
Seems to work well based on a quick trial on the web site. Annoying that I seem to have to download the app to see how much it costs.
- vvoyer 5y ago
  Hey there, indeed I put an upsell screen at the end of the download because our mobile apps are currently the most advanced background remover and image editing tools we have. The price for the mobile app is $9.50 per month and there's a free version.
  - cyberge99 5y ago
    Why did you choose a monthly subscription model? I’m genuinely curious because I’m a “one off” user. I don’t use it frequently enough to justify a recurring monthly cost. Have you considered a bulk credits payment model (ex. $19.99 for 1,000 photo processing credits) for users like me?
    - guillegette 5y ago
      Credits is the way to go, most common biz model in the industry. I understand their appetite for MRR but there should be a more low entry plan.
    - vvoyer 5y ago
      We started as a mobile app and the subscription model was the obvious choice here. Most of our pro users are hardcore PhotoRoom users that will need this on multiple occasions. Now for one off users this is a good question, especially on the web where this could make more sense. I know some tools (remove.bg) that have this system so we'll think about it. Thanks!
      - Terretta 5y ago
        Um … “most of our users are users who will pay for this model” doesn’t really prove what you think it proves. But more to the point $120 - $240 assuming major versions last a year or two is too much relative to, say, apps in Adobe suite or especially too much relative to the new sleek photo editing apps and suites for MacOS and iOS (like Affinity).
ravenstine 5y ago
Wow! I thought Remask AI from Topaz Labs was good, but this did what took a few seconds what took me several minutes of corrections in that other program. It worked quite beautifully for multiple photos that I thought it would choke on. Now to start faking my travel to Paris and Milan on Tinder.
sm4rk0 5y ago
Bravo! That's great. I've heard about https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/ but this is next level (or two).
ashraymalhotra 5y ago
Congratulations @vvyoer! We are active paid users of https://www.unscreen.com/ https://www.unscreen.com/ for video background removal. Do you have plans to add support for video background removal anytime soon?
- ea016 5y ago
  Eliot here, I work with Vincent on PhotoRoom. Our current focus is shipping an incredible app on the web and on mobile, but we'll tackle video very soon!
nemosaltat 5y ago
Neat! For the last year or so, I’ve used remove.bg if I want to quickly create a transparent PNG. N=1, photoroom.com does seem to work a bit faster, but the results don’t seem as accurate and I don’t see a quick way (on the web version) to make minor corrections.
- vvoyer 5y ago
  Thanks. We've seen it go both ways: sometimes the results are better on PhotoRoom, sometimes they are better on remove.bg. If you try the mobile app you'll see that we do have ways to easily correct the background remover algorithm. For example you can adjust the subject selection or just scratch the parts you don't want and we'll try to infer the bigger picture from theses scratches. We will bring this functionality to the web very soon. Thanks for the feedback!
RankingMember 5y ago
Tested with Parked Domain Girl, worked great! (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/parked-domain-girl https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/parked-domain-girl)
- adzm 5y ago
  Wow the ads on there completely obscure content without any way to get them to go away. Halves of paragraphs entirely unreadable on mobile Chrome.
  - RankingMember 5y ago
    Yeah I was reluctant to link to it, it's terrible. Anyways, here's the result (dear god imgur is terrible now too- you have to watch a video ad before uploading): https://i.imgur.com/ao5zeSa.png https://i.imgur.com/ao5zeSa.png
mattfrommars 5y ago
What kind of tech stacks runs this image removal part?
- thesehands 5y ago
  My guess is something very similar to U2Net https://github.com/xuebinqin/U-2-Net https://github.com/xuebinqin/U-2-Net
  - mtthtlt 5y ago
    Matthieu here, ML engineer at PhotoRoom. We use a custom UNet model. We work with PyTorch for research and use Tensor RT and CoreML to deploy models.
ushakov 5y ago
just used it today for removing white background from my favicon very neat indeed
nadermx 5y ago
On show HN four days ago, open source alternative, that does video too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929397
- vvoyer 5y ago
  Nice project @darermx! Just tried it on a few picture and it's impressive. To be fair this is not working as great for theses pictures as PhotoRoom background remover but still a good start!
dawnerd 5y ago
Wow, worked really well on an image of mine where it wouldn't necessarily be obvious what to remove. In fact I think it did better than the manual keying I did on it years ago.
- vvoyer 5y ago
  That's awesome feedback, our ML engineers will be very proud :)
rp8 5y ago
It didn’t work in my picture. It has trees in the background from a small hill looking down.
- Mudface_72 5y ago
  https://vanceai.com/remove-background/ https://vanceai.com/remove-background/ https://www10.lunapic.com/editor/ https://www10.lunapic.com/editor/ https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/ https://socialbook.io/remove-background https://socialbook.io/remove-background
- vvoyer 5y ago
  Hey there, could you link me your picture via https://imgbb.com/ https://imgbb.com/? So I can have a look, thanks!
cweill 5y ago
Canva has this feature, but it's only available to premium users. I use it quite a bit when making YouTube thumbnails that contain my face. It's nice to have a free alternative. Here's another free option: https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/
- thundergolfer 5y ago
  btw, Canva was using remove.bg from the start, and now owns the company behind it, Kaleido.
jacobn 5y ago
Nice! Not to be all jaded, but there’s one of these services launching per month (week?) these days. Some are free (but then usually poor quality), others cost money (usually with some resolution limited freebie or credits-on-signup). I run https://clippingmagic.com https://clippingmagic.com, which launched here on hn eight years ago now - time flies [1]. We were #1 until the recent surge in DL-based solutions. It’s more fun to be the disruptor, but getting disrupted sure brought some renewed focus - competition works ;) Just updated our DL model - old dogs take a while, but we finally did get a fully automatic solution including hair, which means we’re the only option with both good full auto and an editor (on desktop, didn't try this one's mobile app - I guess they have some editing options there?) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5682831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5682831
- vvoyer 5y ago
  Hey Jacob! I am discovering all theses tools myself (I joined PhotoRoom 5 weeks ago and created the web tool of this post). We're indeed mobile first but plan to go on the web more aggressively in the coming weeks. Our mobile app has a lot of editing features, effects, touch retouch/inpaiting and interactive segmentation (subject selection, scribbles) just like Clipping Magic. I also love competition even if we try not to look to much at it and just roll with our user feedback and requests. PS: I've used Vector Magic in the past, amazing tool :) Also used https://www.pngtosvg.com/ https://www.pngtosvg.com/ which works really well besides the very hacky-look webpage.
mandeepj 5y ago
Please change your logo\casing from 'PhotoRoom' to 'Photoroom'. It'll look more fluid. There is no need for 'Room' to stand out. Let it be low key. If you have your own reasons for the current styling then you can totally ignore my request :-)
- drewbeck 5y ago
  1. Has this ever worked for you before? 2. This is clearly a designed logo, which means yes, lots of reasoning went into it. 3. Please change your user name to include your entire last name, it would be more clear.
  - mandeepj 5y ago
    Duh! Clearly, that feedback was not for you. You acted like a junior engineer who writes code like a nail in the wall and gets butt hurt when he receives code review feedback :-)
georgewsinger 5y ago
Wolfram language has the `RemoveBackground` which does this in a single function call: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/RemoveBackground.html https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/RemoveBackground....
sylvainpace 5y ago
Amazing product, keep it up

102 points by vvoyer 5y ago

pretty cool!

Seems to work well based on a quick trial on the web site. Annoying that I seem to have to download the app to see how much it costs.

vvoyer 5y ago
Hey there, indeed I put an upsell screen at the end of the download because our mobile apps are currently the most advanced background remover and image editing tools we have. The price for the mobile app is $9.50 per month and there's a free version.
- cyberge99 5y ago
  Why did you choose a monthly subscription model? I’m genuinely curious because I’m a “one off” user. I don’t use it frequently enough to justify a recurring monthly cost. Have you considered a bulk credits payment model (ex. $19.99 for 1,000 photo processing credits) for users like me?
  - guillegette 5y ago
    Credits is the way to go, most common biz model in the industry. I understand their appetite for MRR but there should be a more low entry plan.
  - vvoyer 5y ago
    We started as a mobile app and the subscription model was the obvious choice here. Most of our pro users are hardcore PhotoRoom users that will need this on multiple occasions. Now for one off users this is a good question, especially on the web where this could make more sense. I know some tools (remove.bg) that have this system so we'll think about it. Thanks!
    - Terretta 5y ago
      Um … “most of our users are users who will pay for this model” doesn’t really prove what you think it proves. But more to the point $120 - $240 assuming major versions last a year or two is too much relative to, say, apps in Adobe suite or especially too much relative to the new sleek photo editing apps and suites for MacOS and iOS (like Affinity).

ravenstine 5y ago

Wow! I thought Remask AI from Topaz Labs was good, but this did what took a few seconds what took me several minutes of corrections in that other program. It worked quite beautifully for multiple photos that I thought it would choke on. Now to start faking my travel to Paris and Milan on Tinder.

sm4rk0 5y ago

Bravo! That's great. I've heard about https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/ but this is next level (or two).

ashraymalhotra 5y ago

Congratulations @vvyoer! We are active paid users of https://www.unscreen.com/ https://www.unscreen.com/ for video background removal. Do you have plans to add support for video background removal anytime soon?

ea016 5y ago
Eliot here, I work with Vincent on PhotoRoom. Our current focus is shipping an incredible app on the web and on mobile, but we'll tackle video very soon!

nemosaltat 5y ago

Neat! For the last year or so, I’ve used remove.bg if I want to quickly create a transparent PNG. N=1, photoroom.com does seem to work a bit faster, but the results don’t seem as accurate and I don’t see a quick way (on the web version) to make minor corrections.

vvoyer 5y ago
Thanks. We've seen it go both ways: sometimes the results are better on PhotoRoom, sometimes they are better on remove.bg. If you try the mobile app you'll see that we do have ways to easily correct the background remover algorithm. For example you can adjust the subject selection or just scratch the parts you don't want and we'll try to infer the bigger picture from theses scratches. We will bring this functionality to the web very soon. Thanks for the feedback!

RankingMember 5y ago

Tested with Parked Domain Girl, worked great! (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/parked-domain-girl https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/parked-domain-girl)

adzm 5y ago
Wow the ads on there completely obscure content without any way to get them to go away. Halves of paragraphs entirely unreadable on mobile Chrome.
- RankingMember 5y ago
  Yeah I was reluctant to link to it, it's terrible. Anyways, here's the result (dear god imgur is terrible now too- you have to watch a video ad before uploading): https://i.imgur.com/ao5zeSa.png https://i.imgur.com/ao5zeSa.png

mattfrommars 5y ago

What kind of tech stacks runs this image removal part?

thesehands 5y ago
My guess is something very similar to U2Net https://github.com/xuebinqin/U-2-Net https://github.com/xuebinqin/U-2-Net
- mtthtlt 5y ago
  Matthieu here, ML engineer at PhotoRoom. We use a custom UNet model. We work with PyTorch for research and use Tensor RT and CoreML to deploy models.

ushakov 5y ago

just used it today for removing white background from my favicon very neat indeed

nadermx 5y ago

On show HN four days ago, open source alternative, that does video too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929397

vvoyer 5y ago
Nice project @darermx! Just tried it on a few picture and it's impressive. To be fair this is not working as great for theses pictures as PhotoRoom background remover but still a good start!

dawnerd 5y ago

Wow, worked really well on an image of mine where it wouldn't necessarily be obvious what to remove. In fact I think it did better than the manual keying I did on it years ago.

vvoyer 5y ago
That's awesome feedback, our ML engineers will be very proud :)

rp8 5y ago

It didn’t work in my picture. It has trees in the background from a small hill looking down.

Mudface_72 5y ago
https://vanceai.com/remove-background/ https://vanceai.com/remove-background/ https://www10.lunapic.com/editor/ https://www10.lunapic.com/editor/ https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/ https://socialbook.io/remove-background https://socialbook.io/remove-background
vvoyer 5y ago
Hey there, could you link me your picture via https://imgbb.com/ https://imgbb.com/? So I can have a look, thanks!

cweill 5y ago

Canva has this feature, but it's only available to premium users. I use it quite a bit when making YouTube thumbnails that contain my face. It's nice to have a free alternative. Here's another free option: https://www.remove.bg/ https://www.remove.bg/

thundergolfer 5y ago
btw, Canva was using remove.bg from the start, and now owns the company behind it, Kaleido.

jacobn 5y ago

Nice! Not to be all jaded, but there’s one of these services launching per month (week?) these days. Some are free (but then usually poor quality), others cost money (usually with some resolution limited freebie or credits-on-signup). I run https://clippingmagic.com https://clippingmagic.com, which launched here on hn eight years ago now - time flies [1]. We were #1 until the recent surge in DL-based solutions. It’s more fun to be the disruptor, but getting disrupted sure brought some renewed focus - competition works ;) Just updated our DL model - old dogs take a while, but we finally did get a fully automatic solution including hair, which means we’re the only option with both good full auto and an editor (on desktop, didn't try this one's mobile app - I guess they have some editing options there?) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5682831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5682831

vvoyer 5y ago
Hey Jacob! I am discovering all theses tools myself (I joined PhotoRoom 5 weeks ago and created the web tool of this post). We're indeed mobile first but plan to go on the web more aggressively in the coming weeks. Our mobile app has a lot of editing features, effects, touch retouch/inpaiting and interactive segmentation (subject selection, scribbles) just like Clipping Magic. I also love competition even if we try not to look to much at it and just roll with our user feedback and requests. PS: I've used Vector Magic in the past, amazing tool :) Also used https://www.pngtosvg.com/ https://www.pngtosvg.com/ which works really well besides the very hacky-look webpage.

mandeepj 5y ago

Please change your logo\casing from 'PhotoRoom' to 'Photoroom'. It'll look more fluid. There is no need for 'Room' to stand out. Let it be low key. If you have your own reasons for the current styling then you can totally ignore my request :-)

drewbeck 5y ago
1. Has this ever worked for you before? 2. This is clearly a designed logo, which means yes, lots of reasoning went into it. 3. Please change your user name to include your entire last name, it would be more clear.
- mandeepj 5y ago
  Duh! Clearly, that feedback was not for you. You acted like a junior engineer who writes code like a nail in the wall and gets butt hurt when he receives code review feedback :-)

georgewsinger 5y ago

Wolfram language has the `RemoveBackground` which does this in a single function call: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/RemoveBackground.html https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/RemoveBackground....

sylvainpace 5y ago

Amazing product, keep it up