Text Behind Image
Cut the subject out of your photo and slide type in between, so the words are partly hidden behind a person, pet, or product. Everything runs on your device.
Drop images here or click to upload
Supports JPG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, SVG
What this text behind image tool does
This tool builds the popular text-behind-subject effect out of three stacked layers on a single canvas. Layer one is your original photo, untouched. Layer two is your text. Layer three is a cut-out of the main subject, saved as a transparent PNG and drawn pixel-for-pixel over the same coordinates as layer one. Because the top layer carries the exact same pixels the photo already had wherever it keeps something, the subject appears to stand in front of the words while the rest of the scene stays behind them. Nothing is erased or masked away, and the illusion comes entirely from the drawing order. The cut-out comes from an ISNet salient-object segmentation model that runs through onnxruntime-web on your own machine. The model weights are roughly 40MB and download once, after which the browser serves them from cache. There is no upload step, no account, no queue, and no per-image cost, which is why the page has no watermark or usage cap. After the model returns its mask, a second pass erodes the mask boundary by one pixel and unmixes leftover background colour out of the semi-transparent edge pixels. That step matters more here than in a plain background remover: the subject sits on top of your text, so an edge pixel still tinted with the old background colour would read as a coloured fringe drawn across the letters. The one-pixel erosion costs nothing in this composite because the pixel underneath is the identical pixel from the untouched photo on layer one. Images larger than 2560 pixels on their longest edge are scaled down to that size first, because the edge cleanup is a per-pixel pass with a neighbourhood probe and a 24 megapixel phone photo would stall the browser for many seconds. The export is always a PNG so that partial text opacity and the soft subject edges survive intact.
When you would want text behind a subject
The effect earns its keep whenever a title has to share space with a photo and you do not want either one to lose. A headline pasted flat over an image always looks pasted on. Letting the subject overlap the type instead creates a sense of depth that reads as deliberate design work rather than an afterthought, and it does it without needing a designer or a subscription. The most common use is a portrait poster or profile banner, where a name or a single word sits behind a person's shoulders and head. It is equally at home on product shots, where a brand name or a price runs behind the item so the item stays the hero. Social platforms are where the look spread: it works well on video thumbnails, on story and reel covers, and on channel art, because it survives being scaled down to a small tile better than a caption bar does. Podcast cover art, event flyers, gym and sports graphics, and album-style mockups all use the same trick. It is also a practical answer to a layout problem. When a photo has a busy background and no clean area to put text on, hiding part of the text behind the subject gives the eye an anchor and turns the clutter into something the composition uses. Because the whole thing runs locally, it is safe for photos you would not want to hand to a third-party service in the first place, such as pictures of children, clients, or unreleased products.
How to put text behind an image
Four steps, and only the first one takes any real time. Everything after the cut-out redraws instantly, so you can experiment with wording and placement as much as you like before exporting.
Upload a photo with one clear foreground subject, such as a person, a pet, or a single product. Leave some visible space around the subject so the text has somewhere to sit.
Press Cut out subject. The first run downloads the segmentation model, which is about 40MB, and later runs skip straight to the inference.
Type your text, then set the font, weight, colour, size, rotation, spacing, and opacity. Drag directly on the preview to move the text, or use the position sliders for fine adjustments.
Press Compose and export PNG. The three layers are flattened into one image at full working resolution and the download appears below the preview.
Frequently Asked Questions
More Image Tools
Explore other powerful tools for your image editing needs
Compress Image
Reduce file size
Resize Image
Change dimensions
Crop Image
Cut out area
Convert Format
Change format
Photo Editor
Edit photos
Rotate Image
Rotate image
Flip Image
Horizontal/Vertical
Add Watermark
Add watermark
Add Border
Add image border
Rounded Corners
Add rounded corners
Filters
Brightness/Contrast
Blur Face
Hide faces
Mosaic
Blur regions
Remove Background
Remove BG
Enhance Image
AI upscale
Add Text
Add text to image
Collage
Combine multiple images
HTML to Image
Webpage to image
GIF to Image
Extract frames
Trim Image
Remove empty edges
Batch Rename Images
Safely rename files in bulk
Circle Crop
Crop images into circles
Black & White
Convert images to grayscale
Split Image
Cut an image into a grid
Merge Images
Combine images into one
Change DPI
Set image DPI metadata
Image to Base64
Encode images as Base64
Image to PDF
Combine images into one PDF
HEIC to JPG
Convert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG
EXIF Remover
View and strip hidden photo metadata, including GPS location
Favicon Generator
Full icon set plus HTML
Color Palette
Extract colors from an image
Base64 to Image
Decode Base64 back to an image
HEIC to PNG
Convert iPhone HEIC photos to lossless PNG
Color Picker
Get the HEX, RGB and HSL of any pixel
Signature Maker
Draw a signature and download it as a transparent PNG
Signature Background Remover
Ink from paper, on transparency
Transparent Background Maker
Make a background transparent