Cleanup.pictures
by Init ML (ClipDrop), a Jasper company
Paint over anything you want gone and the AI rebuilds what was behind it
Cleanup.pictures is a free, browser-based AI inpainting tool that removes unwanted objects, people, text, watermarks and defects from photographs. You brush over the area you want gone and the model reconstructs what was plausibly behind it, rather than smearing nearby pixels the way a traditional clone or healing tool does. It is aimed at photographers, agencies, real-estate listings and e-commerce teams who need fast retouching without opening Photoshop.
Cleanup.pictures is a browser-based AI inpainting tool that removes unwanted objects, people, text, watermarks and defects from photographs. The user brushes over the unwanted area and the model reconstructs what was plausibly behind it, rather than cloning adjacent pixels the way a traditional healing brush does - which is why practitioners report it handling uniform backgrounds such as sky, grass and walls convincingly, and why it struggles with structured content like handwritten signatures and dense text. It launched on Product Hunt on 20 October 2021 from Init ML, the studio behind ClipDrop, and has since changed hands twice: Stability AI owned it until Jasper acquired ClipDrop in a deal that closed on 20 February 2024, giving the marketing-AI company an image editing stack used, per the acquisition release, by millions of designers and brands. The core tool remains free and unlimited for casual use with output capped at 720 pixels, which is the single most important thing to know before adopting it - a 300 DPI source comes back at 72 DPI on the free tier. A Pro subscription starting at $3 per month, or $36 per year, lifts the resolution ceiling and adds a higher-quality refinement pass, and an $11-per-month ClipDrop Pro bundle adds background removal and replacement, uncrop and generative fill. For developers there is a usage-priced inpainting API with samples for Node.js, SwiftUI and Kotlin, now routed through Jasper's API stack, which the vendor says improved retouch quality. It sits deliberately at the low-friction end of a market whose upper end is Adobe's Generative Fill: no account, no install, one tool that does one job in about thirty seconds.
A marketing, listing or e-commerce team that retouches high volumes of ordinary photos and does not want a Creative Cloud seat or a retoucher for every one of them.
A distracting object, person, watermark or date stamp gone from a photo in about thirty seconds, in a browser tab, for free at web resolution.
At a Glance
- Category
- Image & Design
- Pricing
- Freemium, Subscription, Usage-based
- Target Market
- Marketing Teams, E-commerce Operators, Real Estate Agents, Photographers, Creative Agencies
- Deployment
- Cloud-only, API-based
- Customers
- ClipDrop, the suite it belongs to, was described at acquisition as used by millions of designers and brands; no separate Cleanup.pictures user count is published
Key Features
- ✓Brush-based object removal
Paint over anything unwanted - objects, people, text, watermarks, defects - and the AI reconstructs the background behind it.
- ✓Generative inpainting rather than cloning
The model infers what was plausibly behind the mask instead of copying neighbouring pixels, avoiding the smears clone tools leave.
- ✓Free unlimited use at web resolution
Unlimited images on the free tier with output capped at 720 pixels, no account or installation required.
- ✓Pro high-resolution export and refinement
Paid tiers remove the size ceiling and add a higher-quality refinement pass for demanding source images.
- ✓Inpainting API
A usage-priced developer API with documentation and samples for Node.js, SwiftUI and Kotlin for batch or in-product use.
- ✓ClipDrop suite bundle
The $11/month tier adds background removal and replacement, uncrop and generative fill alongside cleanup in one subscription.
- ✓Browser-native workflow
Runs entirely in a browser tab, so non-designers on any machine can retouch without licensing or installing an editor.
Capabilities
Use Cases
- •Real-estate listing cleanup
An agent removes bins, cars and signage from exterior shots before the listing goes live, in minutes not hours.
- •E-commerce catalogue prep
A merchandiser strips props, reflections and stray tags from hundreds of product photos without briefing a retoucher.
- •Watermark and date-stamp removal
A marketing team clears burned-in text and camera date stamps from licensed archive imagery before reuse in campaigns.
- •Tourist removal in travel and venue photography
Photographers erase passers-by from otherwise usable frames, which the inpainting handles well against sky and open backgrounds.
- •Programmatic cleanup via API
A developer wires the inpainting API into an upload pipeline so user-submitted photos are cleaned automatically at ingest.
Ideal For
Best For
- ✓Removing distracting objects, people and clutter from real-estate and property listing photos
- ✓Cleaning e-commerce product shots - stray props, reflections, price tags and background debris
- ✓Stripping watermarks, date stamps and burned-in text from images you have the rights to use
- ✓High-volume, low-complexity retouching where sending each image to a designer is not worth the round trip
- ✓Quick social and blog imagery where a web-resolution result is all that is needed and the free tier suffices
Not Ideal For
- ✗Print and high-resolution work on the free tier, where output is capped at 720 pixels and reviewers report 300 DPI images coming back at 72 DPI
- ✗Removing handwritten signatures or dense text from patterned backgrounds - Product Hunt reviewers name this as the tool's clearest weak spot
- ✗Teams that need layers, masks, versioning or a full editing pipeline; this is one operation, not an editor
- ✗Enterprise buyers needing SOC 2, ISO 27001, SSO or a DPA - none of that is published for this product
- ✗Anyone wanting frictionless subscription management, given a Product Hunt review reporting charges continuing after cancellation
Integrations
Deployment
Market & Ratings
ClipDrop, the suite it belongs to, was described at acquisition as used by millions of designers and brands; no separate Cleanup.pictures user count is published
Market Analysis
Pros
- ✓The free tier is genuinely usable and unlimited, not a three-image trial, which is why it spread by word of mouth rather than marketing
- ✓Reviewers consistently report clean results on uniform backgrounds - one Hacker News commenter said that for many images they could not tell where the removed object had been
- ✓Very fast: Product Hunt reviewers describe roughly thirty-second edits against much longer manual workflows, with no blurry traces
- ✓A developer API with multi-language samples means the same capability can be automated rather than clicked one image at a time
- ✓Under Jasper via the ClipDrop acquisition it has a commercial owner and an ongoing upgrade path, rather than being an abandoned demo
Cons
- ✗Free output is capped at 720 pixels and reviewers report 300 DPI images downgraded to 72 DPI, which rules the free tier out of any print workflow
- ✗Text removal is weak - Product Hunt reviewers specifically call out handwritten signatures and text over backgrounds as failure cases
- ✗A Product Hunt reviewer reports being billed after cancelling their subscription; the overall Product Hunt rating is only 3.3 out of 5, albeit across just three reviews
- ✗Practitioner discussion is thin and dated - the main Hacker News thread is from October 2021 at 30 points, and there is no G2, Capterra or TrustRadius listing at all, so there is little current independent signal
- ✗It has been sold twice in three years (Init ML to Stability AI, then ClipDrop to Jasper), and no security, compliance or data-handling posture is published, which makes it hard to sanction for regulated or brand-sensitive assets
Pricing
Free
$0
- ✓Unlimited images
- ✓Output capped at 720 pixels
- ✓No account or installation required
Cleanup Pro
From $3/mo
- ✓Unlimited export resolution
- ✓High-quality refinement pass
- ✓Billed $36/year
ClipDrop Pro
From $11/mo
- ✓Everything in Cleanup Pro
- ✓Background removal and replacement
- ✓Uncrop
- ✓Generative fill
API
Usage-based
- ✓Inpainting API
- ✓Samples for Node.js, SwiftUI and Kotlin
- ✓Routed through the Jasper API stack
The free tier is genuinely unlimited but caps output at 720 pixels, so the real question is whether you need print resolution - if you do, the $3/month (or $36/year) Cleanup Pro tier is the entry point, and the $11/month ClipDrop Pro bundle is better value the moment you also want background removal, uncrop or generative fill. API access is metered by usage and priced separately. Note that at least one Product Hunt reviewer reports being charged after cancelling, so watch the subscription lifecycle rather than assuming a clean self-serve cancel.
Security & Compliance
Sources
This page was written from 5 sources, 4 on domains other than cleanup.pictures.
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