What is Crop & Resize, and how do I remove an unwanted background?

Procreate allows you to change the size of your canvas, isolate a specific area, and resample an image to make it larger or smaller. It does not have a dedicated single tool to remove backgrounds of images, but this article aims to explain a few different ways to do this, in addition to a basic introduction to cropping and resizing an artwork.

If you’re here for background removal, head towards the bottom of the article.

Crop & Resize

This video demonstrates how to access Crop & Resize and expand the dimensions of your canvas, first by width and height, and then by linking and changing both together:

1. Head to Actions → Canvas → Crop & Resize

2. Drag the boundary of the canvas using the corner handles

3. Alternatively, manually specify the dimensions that you would like to crop to in the Settings tab near the top right

4. Tap Done in the top right to finalise the action and return to your canvas

5. Tap Cancel to return to your original canvas without applying the change

6. Tap Reset to revert any changes and stay in Crop & Resize

If you turn on Snapping, this will allow you to snap the handles in line with the horizontal and vertical centres of the canvas, or the quadrants that they make up.

You can toggle on Resample to have your entire image scaled up or down to the new dimensions. This scaling will use bicubic interpolation to produce the result.

Shrink and rotate your canvas:

This video shows how to reduce the size of your canvas with the handles in crop and resize, and how to rotate it:

1. Head to Actions → Canvas → Crop & Resize

2. Drag the boundary of your canvas using the corner handles

3. Reposition the cropped canvas by dragging the center of the highlighted window

4. Head to Settings near the top right and drag the Rotation slider to rotate your canvas

5. Tap Done in the top right to finalise the action and return to the canvas

6. Tap cancel to return to your original canvas without applying the change

Resample your canvas:

This next video demonstrates how to increase or decrease the dimensions of your canvas while scaling the artwork up and down at the same time, using bicubic interpolation:

1. Head to Actions → Canvas → Crop & Resize

2. Tap Settings in the top right, then toggle on Resample

3. Input your new dimensions in the numerical fields above

4. Alternatively, drag the corner sliders of the highlighted area

You won’t see a huge difference in the video, but if you pay attention to the input measurements, you’ll see that the canvas and artwork is being scaled up about eight times its original size.

Remove Background

This video shows how to roughly remove background elements with a combination of Ellipse and Freehand Selection:

1. Enter Selections

2. Use Ellipse, Rectangle and Freehand Selections to trace around the part of the layer you'd like to keep

3. Tap Invert at the bottom

4. Scrub three fingers left and right on the canvas to delete the area outside of your initial selection

Remove background using Automatic Selection:

This video shows how to use Automatic Selection to remove areas of similar colour:

1. Enter Selections

2. Select Automatic at the bottom

3. Tap on the areas of the background you'd like to remove

4. Continue holding down as you tap each time, then drag left and right to adjust the aggressiveness of the selection

5. Once all your unwanted background areas are selected, scrub three fingers left and right on the canvas to delete that content

Mask Trick

The trick in this video was popularised by some of our customers. It’s most useful if you have a scanned image that has darker linework on a light background, such as a sketch or pen-work on paper:

1. Import your image (Actions → Add → Insert a Photo)

2. Open Layers and tap twice on the imported image layer, then tap Copy.

3. Open up the same menu and tap Mask.

4. Scrub three fingers down on the canvas and select Paste (or use Actions → Add → Paste).

5. Open up Layers , then tap twice on the Mask itself and select Invert.

6. Squeeze the mask and the layer together with two fingers to merge them, or tap twice on the layer and select ‘Merge Mask’ in the list.

Also, in the last half of the video you’ll see the layer set to Reference before using ColorDrop. Ideally, you’ll create a layer below the Reference and use ColorDrop in here to block out your colors. Generally the resulting fills will appear smoother.

‘Lifting a subject from the background’ in Apple Photos

This video shows you how to use Apple’s ‘Lifting a subject from the background feature’ to isolate the prominent part of an image and take it elsewhere, in this case into Procreate:

1. If you have a compatible iPad that is fully updated, head to the Photos app

2. Find an image or video and open it in full view

3. Tap hold the subject of the photo (or frame of a video) until you see an outline appear around the subject

4. Using another finger, switch to Procreate from the dock down the bottom

5. Wait a moment and release your first finger (holding the subject) into either the Gallery or a canvas in Procreate

If you drop it into the Gallery, it will create a canvas with the subject, and if you drop it into a canvas, it will create a layer with the subject.

Read more about Crop & Resize and Selections in the Handbook, and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.