Version 1.0, first public build
Photomop launches: 12 on-device tools, free at full resolution
The idea was simple enough to test in an afternoon and stubborn enough to take a lot longer than that: put the segmentation model in the browser instead of on a server, and see what stops being necessary. The upload stops being necessary. So does the queue, the credit counter and the watermark. What is left is a set of tools that run on the machine you already own.
Everything in this build is free to use at full resolution. Not a preview, and not capped at 0.25 megapixels the way the free tiers we grew up resenting were. Running the model on your hardware costs us nothing to serve, so there is nothing to meter. The pricing page sets out what that covers line by line, and the privacy page sets out what does and does not leave the device while it happens.
What shipped
- Background remover, transparent background, background changer and background blur
- Object remover, upscaler and passport photo
- Resize, crop, compress and convert, all without downloading a model
- Batch edit, queued in the tab
- WebGPU where the browser has it, WebAssembly everywhere else
- Model caching, so every run after the first is instant and offline
What is still rough
- The first run on a tool downloads a model, which on a slow connection is a real wait. The progress bar is honest about it, and it only happens once.
- Older phones run inference at a reduced size and composite the mask back onto your full resolution original. The output is full size; very fine detail can be softer than on a laptop.
- Batch edit works in the tab, which means the tab has to stay open. Unattended batches are a Pro feature and are not built yet.
- Five tools have their own page and their own working panel: resize, crop, compress, convert and batch edit. Those are the four canvas operations plus the queue around them, so they need no model and run the moment the page loads.
- The seven tools that need an AI model do not have their own route yet. Their cards open the tools hub while the model loading, the caching and the fallback path are finished.
What is not here yet
- Pro, and therefore any way to pay us
- The hosted API
- HD background packs
- Native iOS and Android apps
- Analytics of any kind, which is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight
Found something broken? That is genuinely useful this early. Tell us what browser and device you were on, and it goes straight to the person who can fix it.