Why not AI?
AI background removers are trained to find people and objects in photos. A logo is neither: it may be text, thin lines or several separate shapes, and a model can decide that half of it is "background". A logo on a flat colour is better handled by a deterministic method that removes exactly that colour.
Flood fill from the corners
The logo tool reads the colour in each corner and removes every pixel connected to the edge of the image that is within a tolerance of one of those colours. Two things follow. First, the logo's own colours are never touched, because they are different. Second, areas of background colour that are enclosed by the logo (the hole in an O, the triangle in an A) are kept, because the fill cannot reach them from the edge. That is usually what you want; if not, remove them with the brush.
Setting the tolerance
JPEG files have compression noise: the "white" around a logo is really a mix of near-whites, and the edge pixels blend into the logo colour. The tolerance (0–120) decides how different a pixel can be from the corner colour and still be removed. Start at the default. Raise it if speckles or a pale outline remain; lower it if parts of a light-coloured logo disappear. For PNG logos with a truly flat background, a tolerance of 5 to 10 is often enough.
Halos on dark backgrounds
A logo exported on white usually has anti-aliased edges, where the edge pixels are part logo colour and part white. On a white page you never see them. Cut out and placed on a dark page, they show as a faint light outline. Three fixes, in order of preference:
- Get the logo exported on a transparent background from the original design file.
- Use the tool's Product or object mode, whose soft matte treats edge pixels as partly transparent, then set Edge cut-off.
- Raise the tolerance slightly so the palest edge pixels are removed, accepting a slightly thinner logo.
Always check the result on the background it will be used on: set a dark colour in the Background step and look before you download as transparent.
Checking the result
Before you download, look at the cut-out on the backgrounds it will actually be used on. In the Background step choose Colour and try white, black and your brand colour in turn; the preview updates immediately. Zoom in on curves and small text, where leftover pixels hide. Check enclosed areas: the counters of letters should be what you expect, transparent or filled. Then switch the background back to Transparent and download the PNG. If the logo will be used by other people, send them the PNG together with a note of its intended minimum size, so it is not stretched beyond what the pixels can carry.
When you need a vector file
A transparent PNG is a raster image: a grid of pixels. It is right for websites, social media, slides and documents. For print, signage, embroidery and anything that will be enlarged, you need the vector file (SVG, PDF, AI or EPS), which scales without losing sharpness. No pixel tool can turn a small JPEG into a sharp vector; that is a redrawing job. If you are the logo owner, ask your designer for the vector set; if you are using a client's logo, ask the client.
Formats
- PNG: lossless and transparent. The default for logos.
- WebP: transparent and smaller; supported by all current browsers.
- JPG: no transparency. Only use it if the logo will always sit on the colour you fill it with.
Logo mode is plain image processing in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and it works offline once the page has loaded.