Doodleden

Free browser-based utility

Cut Out and Paste Between Photos

Paste as a movable layer

Open both photos side by side. Draw around something in the first, soften its edge, and paste it into the second, or into the same photo. It floats as a layer you can move, resize, turn, flip and fade until it fits, then Place it.

Processed locally — your images stay on your device.

1

Copy from

The photo with the part you want. Cut it out and clean up its edge; the photo itself is not changed.

Drag & drop the photo to copy from here or You can also paste an image from your clipboard.
2

Paste into

The photo the cut-out goes into. It can be the same photo.

Drag & drop the photo to paste into here or You can also paste an image from your clipboard.

How to cut out part of one photo and paste it into another

The tool has two panels: 1. Copy from and 2. Paste into. On a wide screen they sit side by side; on a phone, panel 2 is below panel 1.

  1. In panel 1, open the photo that has what you want: browse, drag it in or paste it.
  2. Draw around it with the Lasso, or use the Rectangle. Soft edge fades its outer pixels so it blends in.
  3. If the outline cuts into what you want, or takes in too much, drag a square handle on it; the outline between its neighbouring handles bends with it. Double-click or double-tap the outline to add a handle where you need one.
  4. Choose Cut out. Panel 1 now shows only the cut-out, on a checked background that stands for transparency.
  5. To clear background caught inside the outline in one go, choose Remove background and move Strength until the background is gone but the subject is not, then Apply. It works from colour, so check the edge and touch up with Erase and Restore.
  6. Clean up its edge if you need to: Erase paints away background caught inside the outline, and Restore brings back anything erased by mistake, exactly as it was. Zoom in for fine edges. Undo takes back one brush stroke at a time; Reset clean-up starts again.
  7. In panel 2, open the photo to paste into. The copied part appears in the middle of it as a floating layer. To move something within the same photo instead, choose Same photo as 1: the part appears just beside where it came from. If photo 2 is already open, choose Paste into photo 2. Clean-up done after pasting reaches photo 2 the next time you paste.
  8. Drag the part, or a square corner to make it larger or smaller; it keeps its shape. Use Turn, Flip and Opacity until it fits, and tick Match tone if it is lighter or darker than its new surroundings.
  9. If something in photo 2 should be in front of the pasted part, such as a branch or a fence, choose Hide parts and paint over it; Show again brings it back. Only the pasted layer is hidden, and the hidden areas stay with photo 2 if you move the layer again.
  10. Choose Place. Undo takes it back. Then save the new photo as PNG, JPEG or BMP.

Reuse a cut-out later

After Cut out, Save cut-out (PNG) saves just the cut-out with a transparent background, trimmed close around it, soft edges included. Another day, choose Open a saved cut-out (PNG) in panel 1 and paste it into any photo. It works on JPEG photos too: the transparent parts let the photo show through. A PNG made elsewhere with a transparent background opens the same way.

The PNG holds the pixels only. The outline, the clean-up strokes and Undo are not saved, so Restore cannot bring back anything outside what the PNG contains. Match tone needs the photo that surrounded the cut-out, so it is not available for a saved cut-out.

The photo in panel 1 is never changed, so you can cut out several parts from it one after another. To start another, choose New selection; clean-up you have done stays where you painted it.

Undo and Ctrl+Z (⌘Z) belong to the panel you last used. An image pasted from your clipboard (Ctrl+V or ⌘V) also opens in the panel you last used; after Cut out, the next one opens in panel 2.

On a keyboard, focus the round handle on the pasted part: the arrow keys move it (Shift for larger steps), plus and minus resize it, and [ and ] turn it (Shift for 15° at a time).

Tips for a convincing result

Pick a source photo taken in similar light and from a similar angle: a face lit from the left looks out of place in a photo lit from the right, whatever the tone. Match tone evens out overall brightness and colour at the edge; it does not move shadows or highlights.

A Soft edge of 2 to 5 pixels suits most cut-outs. Use 0 for pixel art or sharp-edged graphics, and more for soft subjects such as hair or clouds.

Making the part larger than it was softens it, because no new detail is created. Copy from the largest, sharpest photo you have, and make it smaller rather than larger where you can.

When you move something within one photo, the place it came from is unchanged. To remove it from there too, use Remove Objects from a Photo on the saved result.

Formats and size

The tool opens PNG, JPEG and BMP images, and HEIC photos in Safari on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, and saves as PNG, JPEG or BMP. The two photos can be different formats and sizes. PNG keeps transparency; JPEG and BMP fill transparent areas with the background colour you choose.

Pictures up to 4096 × 4096 pixels are edited at full size. A larger picture can be edited as a reduced copy at the largest size that fits; the tool tells you the size before it starts.

Private by design

Both photos are opened, edited and saved inside your browser. They are not uploaded to a Doodleden server, and nothing about them is stored. The copied part and the undo history live only in this page while it is open.

Files are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to or stored by Doodleden. This site is funded by advertising; our ad partners use cookies and similar technologies as described in our privacy policy.