Remove a Signature Background
Strip the paper out of a scanned signature and keep only the ink. Tolerance handles the shadows and grey that scanners always add.
Free preview · No signup · ~10 seconds
Drop a scanned signature — image or 1-page PDF
PNG, JPG, WebP, SVG or a 1-page PDF — up to 20 MB
Runs entirely in your browser. Your image is never uploaded.
How the paper is separated from the ink
Colour matching, not handwriting recognition
This finds every pixel close to the paper colour and makes it transparent. It does not try to recognise a signature, which is what makes it instant and predictable — and what makes an even, plain background matter so much.
Lined and coloured paper
Ruled lines and printed forms are not the paper colour, so they survive the cut. If your signature sits on a form, crop to the signature first, or run the tool twice and remove the line colour on the second pass.
Reading the tolerance
Start at 40 for a scan. Clean, bright scans often need less, and a phone photo with uneven lighting needs more. Watch the thin tails of the strokes as you raise it: when they start to break up, you have gone one step too far.
Why edges look soft
Scanners anti-alias, so the boundary between ink and paper is a gradient rather than a hard line. Those in-between pixels are what stop a cut-out signature looking like it was chopped out with scissors, so a small amount of softness at the edge is correct and worth keeping.
It runs on your machine
The image is processed on a canvas in your browser. Nothing about your signature is transmitted, stored, or logged anywhere.
How to remove a signature background
Upload the scan
Drop in the scanned or photographed signature. Cropping tightly to the signature first gives the cleanest result. Scanned to PDF instead? A single-page PDF works as well — page 1 is turned into an image in your browser.
Raise the tolerance
The background colour defaults to white. Increase tolerance until the paper is gone and only ink is left on the checkerboard.
Download
Take a free preview, or download the full-resolution transparent PNG with one credit.
When you need the ink alone
Signing PDFs
Place the ink directly on the page instead of a white rectangle sitting over the text.
Overlaying on stamps
Combine a signature with a seal or letterhead where a solid background would hide what is underneath.
Reprinting forms
Reuse one clean signature across every copy of a form rather than signing each by hand.
Digital correspondence
Sign letters that will be read on screen, where a white box gives the paste away.
Or just ask
Describe the edit in your own words
Type what you want changed and the assistant does it on the canvas — each step lands as a layer you can reopen, so nothing it does is baked in.
No edits yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Remove your signature background
Upload the scan, clear the paper, and download the ink alone.