How to lift a subject from a photo’s background on an iPad

My WhatsApp family group is a place where we only communicate via stickers. By stickers, I don’t mean sticker packs or WhatsApp’s default stickers, but stickers created from our very own photos. This is possible thanks to a feature on iOS 16 or later where you can easily lift a subject from the photo background. The feature works both on iPhone as well as iPad, allowing a new level of photo editing flexibility.

At a time when smartphone and PC makers are touting new AI features on their devices, this ability to simply lift a subject from its background looks magical. Once you lift a subject from the photo background on your iPad or iPhone, you can either add a new background to that photo or turn it into a sticker.

Edit a photo on the iPad: How to lift a subject from the photo background on the iPad

In addition to photos, you can also use this feature by pausing a video on any frame. It also works in Safari, Quick Look, and other applications. If you are wondering how, you can also lift a subject from the photo background on your iPad, then all you need is an iPad powered by an A12 Bionic chipset or newer.

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The supported models include the iPad (9th generation and later, iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Air 11-inch (M2), iPad Air 13-inch (M2), iPad Pro 11-inch (all generations), iPad Pro 11-inch (M4), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later), and iPad Pro 13-inch (M4). If you have a supported device then here’s a step-by-step guide, you need to follow to use this feature:

Step 1: Open the Photos app on your iPad. 

Step 2: Select the photo you want to use and open it in full screen. 

Please note that this ability to lift a subject from a photo background works best with photos featuring subjects such as people or pets.  

Step 3: Press and lightly hold on the subject you want to lift from the photo until a thin white line runs around the subject. 

Step 4: Once the white line appears around the subject, a pop-up menu will appear with the option to either copy or share the image. 

Step 5: If you copy it, you will be able to paste it into another app of your choice. 

Step 6: If you choose to share then it will let you send the image directly through an app like WhatsApp or iMessage.

iPad for photography editing: A powerful tool

Apple’s iPad is a powerful tool that can be used for editing photos and videos on the go. Many professional photographers have now begun using iPads as their mobile editing machines thanks to the availability of apps like Lightroom and Photoshop for iPad and the power of Apple’s M-series chips. However, you can do a lot of editing with the Photos app including adjusting the light and colour, crop, rotate, add a filter, and more.

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To do this editing, all you need to do is tap the photo or video you want to edit by clicking on the thumbnail and view it in full screen. Click Edit and on the right, you will see all the effects you can edit as exposure, brilliance, highlights, and shadows. Select the effect you want to edit and then drag the slider to make precise adjustments.

You can also apply filter effects or crop, rotate, flip or markup a photo or video. Tap Done to save your edits and if you don’t like your changes, click Cancel and then tap Discard Changes. In quintessential Apple fashion, even editing photos on iPad and iPhone is simple, straightforward and designed for fun and not a task.