Image editing, especially easily removing backgrounds from product images via an app has come a long way.

When I first started looking for a tool to improve images I had taken quickly and easily I found Pixel Cut. It wasn’t perfect, the cutouts often needed additional editing and doing this with your finger wasn’t accurate enough. I bought a stylus pen to help with the task.

In the end when the subscription ran out I gave up with the app and didn’t renew.

I’ve tried a few since then including Apple photos and Google photos. VSCO I looked into but honestly couldn’t get the hang of it. The Visual Supply Company is a photo and video editing and sharing platform designed primarily for photographers, content creators, and individuals looking for a creative outlet without the pressure of traditional social media. So it combines community for photographers to widen their network and promote their work as well as photo editing tools. I didn’t need this.

I paid for Photoroom, it’s not free and does offer the background removal tools I needed as well as standard photo editing tools (including color, cropping, and lighting adjustments) but it didn’t stick for me.

Lots of people rave about Canva, I haven’t tried it so cannot comment really except to say my needs are pretty basic. Like many others who aren’t the best photographers all I am looking to do is make product images shot on an IPhone look better and more professional.

I have tried Capture One app but this is more of a professional image editing tool for photographers, not hacks like me.

There’s a definite learning curve here. Capture One app is a professional-grade photo editing and workflow software designed primarily to help photographers, import, organize, edit, and export photos.

This tool is pro level editing with a learning curve. Colour grading, advanced masking and raw processing. All things I didn’t need. You also get Tethered Shooting (Studio & Location) where you can connect your camera to your computer or mobile device (iPad/iPhone) via USB or Wi-Fi.

It was too tricky to master and way more than I needed for my basic E Commerce project.

In the end I went back to Pixel cut and with the help of AI the offering particularly if you are shooting clothing has dramatically improved. The invisible ghost mannequin tool will take a flat image and pop it out giving it dimension and life. The downside it’s a credit based system and it takes 26 credits per image generated, and the app usually gives you two choices, so you waste credits on at least one image generated you don’t want.

There’s other really neat tool is placing clothing from a flat basic image onto a model. Again these features are heavy AI powered and that comes at a cost I discovered.

I had 200 credits when I signed up and after generating 4 images all the credits were used up and the app was encouraging me to purchase more outside of my subscription. Obviously how Pixel Cut makes the big bucks.

I have ended up buying into the £69.99 per year annual business pro membership, there is a £59.99 option but when I did a bit of research the difference between the two is how many credits you get to use these neat AI tools, basic background removal is unlimited.

I’ve had a couple of conversations with support, which at first I thought was someone extremely helpful but when I got the wrong information and couldn’t connect my iPhone and IPad to the same account I soon realised it was an AI bot helping me.

All that aside Pixel Cut is the easiest and most effective app I have found for clean background removal and retouch capabilities I have managed to get the hang of with a bit of practise.

And the AI additional features while they may get you into spending more than you’d like if you have a heavy work load and lots of images to improve, the tools are very impressive and do make not the greatest product shots look way more professional.

Compared to AI image editing solutions like Grok at £12 per month with no restrictions or expiring credits it seems pretty affordable and effective for me.

Buyer beware if you get into using the AI studio features and templates you might find yourself with a pretty big bill at the end.

I’ve read all the FAQ’s about the credit based model and I still don’t really understand what I get except for my subscription level it’s 3600 credits per month.

I’ve worked out if I make 10 ghost mannequins per day, not that many I think at 52 per mannequin, in a week I’ll be out of credits.

The cost is the same to put clothes on models. My estimate is I’ll get about 70 images per month of the AI generated images included in my subscription. Anything over that I’ll have to pay extra for.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to figure out the Pixelcut credit based model and which plan to go for. Obviously it’s a lot better value if you sign up for a year but you can test out the features with a one week subscription at £3.99

Good to be aware if you sign up for a week it will roll over and bill you again until you cancel but you can cancel at anytime.