Pixian

AI

image background removal

SHOW HN2023

383points
115comments
#89of 3,109 in 2023
Top 3%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

16 positive, 22 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 22 critical, out of 66 comments about the project. Thread score -0.11.

Pricing: 3 for, 6 againstPerformance: 7 for, 2 againstIdea: 1 for, 7 againstDesign: 2 for, 2 againstExecution: 1 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Results are accurate and fast, especially for hair and portraits.

    From 4 comments
    • Tried couple of pics, it's way better than other services and pricing of it seems really good! Thanks for the app!
      peyloride on HN
    • I've tried lots of free services of background removal, this is definitely one of the best one and it's fast. Thanks for the tool.
      thrdbndndn on HN
    • Love it. It also provide highres output out of the box. 100% I will be a customer, albeit my yearly needs are in single digit range.
      avereveard on HN
    • I will give this a try, but I’ve been happy to shell out for a few credits on remove.bg when intricate hair strands were involved [in isolating portraits]. Whatever they do just…
      tpowell on HN
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing with non-expiring credits is reasonable.

    From 3 comments
    • Thanks. I appreciate unexpiring credits and think that’s a super reasonable price. Again, thanks for your work. I don’t want to criticize and am glad you built this. I just like…
      prepend on HN
    • Something like that seems eminently reasonable. Low dollar amount for enough uses that I don't need to think too much every time I press the execute button. Reasonable expiration…
      ghaff on HN
    • I appreciate the free tier with resolution-limited downloads. And you've priced the middle tier right, because I wouldn't hesitate to drop five bucks even if I didn't know how…
      gnicholas on HN
  • Honest comparison with competitors.

    From 1 comment
    • I really like the honest comparison with competitor. At first I was confused because I'm so accustomed to the adverts containing bogus comparisons.
      scotty79 on HN

Objections

  • Free while in beta makes businesses wary of relying on it.

    From 2 comments
    • This is interesting. I signed up and will give the API a try. Just so you know, you being "free while in beta" is concerning to me as a business customer. I would be much more…
      sebastiennight on HN
    • Without annoying subscriptions "yet". The "free while in beta" statement and the title of this submission contradict themselves. I'm also curious what exactly is your goal with…
      skilled on HN
  • Local or on-device tools like macOS Preview and phones already do this for free.

    From 3 comments
    • macOS does this natively. There's models that can run in the browser literally so any premise on discounting doesn't exactly pan out lol
      villgax on HN
    • On iOS you can long tap on a subject and then save it as an image. Mac OS has a similar feature on right click and Preview :)
      edu on HN
    • I recently found out that on MacOS, the Preview app can do image background removal it’s pretty good at it too!
      koliber on HN
  • Retaining image records indefinitely is a privacy concern.

    From 1 comment
    • >Retention >Records not associated with an account are deleted or anonymized within a year of creation. Image processing records associated with an account are retained…
      hovering_nox on HN
  • Hard to buy small amounts of credits; the $5 minimum is high for occasional use.

    From 1 comment
    • This falls victim to the inability to do microtransactions online. I love the philosophy and reasoning for starting yet another background removal service, but as someone that…
      nathancahill on HN

Requests

  • Support HEIC images.

    From 1 comment
    • Doesn't seem to accept .heic photos, which is really odd given that the majority of new photos in the US are probably created in that format.
      markdown on HN
  • Offer interactive editing or masking controls.

    From 2 comments
    • The main challenge and deficiency with this and other services like this is that they assume some content type to be foreground - here it is likely "portrait" style people - it's…
      kookamamie on HN
    • Which model are you using? There are a bunch of different background removal models, many with configuration options, but most of the services only provide one and without…
      jacob019 on HN
  • Add a GIMP plugin or Android web app icon.

    From 2 comments
    • Is something with this functionality available as a Gimp plugin?
      Aardwolf on HN
    • Adding it to HomeScreen as a WebApp on Android, creates a link without a logo. Could you make it appear like other WebApps, like Squoosh?
      high_priest on HN
  • Resize oversized images instead of rejecting them.

    From 1 comment
    • I tried with a random photo from my mobile phone, it complains that the image is too large. This is bad UX to me. The webapp could resize it for me
      peter-m80 on HN

Questions

  • Which model is used?

    From 1 comment
    • Which model are you using? There are a bunch of different background removal models, many with configuration options, but most of the services only provide one and without…
      jacob019 on HN
  • How do the quality percentages above 100% work?

    From 1 comment
    • Ok; two things: 1. For "objects" and "artwork" it says that quality is above 100% (108% and 119% respectively), which is weird and doesn't inspire confidence? It's also unclear…
      bambax on HN
  • Where and how to pay after signing up?

    From 1 comment
    • Hi, I like this, tried it out and it performed pretty well. I signed up. It says in the pricing section that 2Mpx images are free, although my test image was larger than that. My…
      Udo on HN

Alternatives named

  • remove.bg

    From 2 comments
    • There is also remove.bg
      Alifatisk on HN
    • remove.bg is great, and they handle hair really well. But so do we! Give us a shot next time ;)
      jacobn on HN
  • Photoroom

    From 1 comment
    • Background removal is becoming a commodity but at the same time being top quality is an essential block of building quality software. We built photoroom and removing background…
      matthieurouif on HN
  • Preview on macOS

    From 2 comments
    • How does it compare to Command+Shift+K in Preview on Mac OS?
      WizardClickBoy on HN
    • I recently found out that on MacOS, the Preview app can do image background removal it’s pretty good at it too!
      koliber on HN
  • Adobe Express

    From 1 comment
    • https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/remove-background does it for free. You do have to create a free acount in order to download the image though.
      lucianfelix on HN
  • Local open source models like U2NET and rembg

    From 2 comments
    • You can do this yourself for free, using the U2NET model... Either client-side or server side. https://github.com/xuebinqin/U-2-Net Pretty trivial thing to implement.
      seper8 on HN
    • There's some mention that this can be self-hosted, but it's not that easy. Even a pre-trained model and self-hosted API like RemBG[0] performs a lot worse than this "pixian"…
      tmikaeld on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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