Image Background Removal

This Background Removal API is as simple as it goes. It calculates a potential foreground object/area, segments it out and removes every other pixel.
You can use it in your image processing apps, quickly make collages with it, apply it to social media apps and more.

This API is created by API4AI. We build our APIs on a completely cloud technology stack which provides full operability, scalability and stable uptime. Our sole goal is to create out-of-the-box self-contained AI solutions that can easily be integrated into any application with just a few simple steps.

Demo

Try our service via:
🤖 Telegram demo bot: https://t.me/a4a_img_bg_removal_bot
🔗 Web demo: https://api4.ai/apis/bg-removal

Contacts

Feel free to contact API4AI team if you have any questions.
📩 Email: hello@api4.ai
💬 Telegram: https://t.me/a4a_support_bot
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/api4ai
🔗 Twitter: https://twitter.com/api4ai
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/api4ai.solutions

Overview

The service processes an input image and responds with the output “foreground” image.

There are three options of output image:

• Mask of foreground. In this case the result is single-channel grayscale PNG image.
  • Areas recognized as foreground will have white color.
  • Areas recognized as background will be black at output image.
  • Pixels of output image near to object borders may have gray values: the closer
    to black, the more likely the pixel is the background.
• The image with the foreground object. The result is 4-channel (RGBA) PNG image where background is transparent.
  • Areas recognized as foreground will have the same color values at output image as original input image.
  • Areas recognized as background will be transparent at output image.
  • Pixels of output image near the object borders may be semitransparent.
• The image with the foreground object and shadow. The result is very similar to previous one (foreground object) but contains additional black shadow region in the bottom of object.

Endpoints

METHOD	URL	DESCRIPTION
GET	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/version	Get service version.
GET	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/modes	Get list of available modes.
POST	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/results	Perform image processing and get results.

Get version

Returns an actual version of the service in format vX.Y.Z where X is the version of API.

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
Endpoint	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/version
Method	GET
Query parameters	–
POST parameters	–

Examples

Request:

$ curl -X 'GET' 'https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/version'

Response:

v1.5.0

Get list of available modes

The service provides two options for background removal results:

• Mask of foreground.
• Image with foreground object.

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
Endpoint	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/modes
Method	GET
Query parameters	–
POST parameters	–

Examples

Request:

$ curl -X 'GET' 'https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/modes'

Response:

[
  "fg-image",
  "fg-image-shadow",
  "fg-mask"
]

Analyse image and return results

Performs actual image analysis and responds with results.

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
Endpoint	https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/results
Method	POST
Query parameters	mode
POST parameters	image, url

Query parameter mode is optional and may be used to choose format of output image: foreground mask or foreground image or foreground image with shadow.
By default the service uses fg-image

Response schema

For responses with 200 HTTP code the type of response is JSON object with the following schema:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "status": {
        "code": ...,
        "message": ...
      },
      "name": ...,
      "md5": ...,
      "entities": [
        {
          "kind": "image",
          "name": ...,
          "image": ...,
          "format": "PNG"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Primary fields:

Name	Type	Description
results[].status.code	string	Status code of image processing: ok or failure.
results[].status.message	string	Human readable explanation for status of image processing.
results[].name	string	Original image name passed in request (e.g. my_image.jpg).
results[].md5	string	MD5 sum of original image passed in request.
results[].entities[].name	string	The name of output entity.
results[].entities[].image	string	PNG result image encoded as base64.
results[].entities[].format	string	Image format.

• Entity name. There are three possible names:

  • general-fg-image if the output is foreground object.
  • general-fg-image-shadow if the output is foreground object with shadow.
  • general-fg-mask if the output is foreground mask.

• The most important part of the response is results[].entities[].image field.

  • Image. The result image is PNG image with transparency.
    Pixels of original image that are recognized as background will be transparent in the result image.
  • Mask. The result image is single-channel grayscale PNG image.
    Pixels of original image that are recognized as background will be black in the result image and foreground will be white.

The output image in results[].entities[].image field is encoded as base64.

Other fields that are not described above always have the same values.

Passing image

Image can be passed by posting regular “multipart form data” in two alternative ways:

• as binary file in image field
• as URL to some public resource in url field

Image must be a regular JPEG or PNG image (with or without transparency).
Usually such images have extensions: .jpg, .jpeg, .png.
The service checks input file by MIME type and accepts the following types:

• image/jpeg
• image/png

The size of image file must be less than 16Mb.

The maximum allowed resolution is 4096x4096.

Examples

Request:

curl -X 'POST' 'https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/results' -F 'image=@img.jpg'

Response:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "status": {
        "code": "ok",
        "message": "Success"
      },
      "name": "img.jpg",
      "md5": "f2d13d0242b98aae82bc7a6dc76e1ea9",
      "entities": [
        {
          "kind": "image",
          "name": "general-fg-image",
          "image": "iVBORw0KGgoAAAA...YII=",
          "format": "PNG"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Request:

curl -X 'POST' 'https://background-removal4.p.rapidapi.com/v1/results?mode=fg-mask' -F 'image=@img.jpg'

Response:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "status": {
        "code": "ok",
        "message": "Success"
      },
      "name": "img.jpg",
      "md5": "f2d13d0242b98aae82bc7a6dc76e1ea9",
      "entities": [
        {
          "kind": "image",
          "name": "general-fg-mask",
          "image": "iVBORw0KGgoAAAA...YII=",
          "format": "PNG"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Possible errors

The service can not process an image

When client sends an image that can not be processed for some reason(s), the service responds with 200 code and returns JSON object in the same format as the format for successful analysis. In this case, the results[].status.code will have failure value and results[].status.message will contain relevant explanation.

Example of possible reasons for the issue:

• Unsupported file MIME type
• Corrupted image
• File passed as URL is too big or non downloadable

Example response for corrupted image:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "status": {
        "code": "failure",
        "message": "Can not load image."
      },
      "name": "file.jpg",
      "md5": "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e",
      "entities": []
    }
  ]
}

Request size is too big

Request size is limited by approximately 32Mb.
When client sends request that exceeds this limit, the service responds with 413 code.

The typical reason for exceeding this limit is overly large image.
Taking into account additional HTTP overhead, we strongly recommend to not pass image files of size more than 16Mb.

Example response for too big request:

Error: Request Entity Too Large

Your client issued a request that was too large.

Missing image or url

When client sends a request without an image and url, the service responds with 422 code and returns JSON object.

Example response for request without image or url:

{"detail": "Missing image or url field."}