How to Fix Background Removal Mistakes in ListingGems: The Erase and Restore Brush

Background removal is fast, but it's not psychic. It'll keep a slice of the floor under a sneaker, shave a thin strap off a handbag, or eat half a wineglass stem and leave the rest. When that happens, you fix it by hand with the Erase and Restore brush in Studio Mode. Usually takes about a minute.

When to use Erase vs Restore

Pick the tool based on what went wrong:

• Use Erase when the auto-mask kept something it shouldn't have. A patch of carpet under a shoe. A shadow that survived background removal. A second item in the frame.
• Use Restore when the auto-mask cut into the product itself. A strap that disappeared against a same-colored wall. Glass handles. Fine hair on a stuffed animal.

The toolbar appears in the top-right of the canvas after background removal runs. Click Erase or Restore to start, or press E / R to switch without reaching for the mouse.

Brush vs Color Select: which mode to pick

Once you've chosen Erase or Restore, you have two ways to apply it.

Brush mode is the default. Drag the cursor across the canvas and the mask updates under it, like a paintbrush. Size goes from 2 to 100 px. The cursor outline is red when erasing and green when restoring, so you always know what's about to happen. This is the mode for fine touch-up: hair edges, glass rims, thin straps. A flood fill would either miss those or grab too much.

Color Select is what you want when there's a chunk of mistake. Click a point. ListingGems finds all connected pixels close to that color and shows them as an overlay (red for Erase, green for Restore). A tolerance slider controls how strict the match is, from 0 to 100. Nothing actually changes until you press Apply (or Enter). Cancel (Esc) throws the selection away. Toggle between Brush and Color Select with S.

Walkthrough: erasing an unwanted background object

Say you photographed a watch on a desk, ran background removal, and a triangle of the desk surface is still showing under the strap. Fastest path:

1. Click Erase in the toolbar (or press E).
2. Switch to Color Select (or press S).
3. Click once on the desk patch you want gone. A red overlay appears, covering every connected pixel close to that color.
4. Drag the tolerance slider. Lower it if the red is bleeding onto the watch itself, raise it if part of the desk patch isn't covered. The overlay updates as you drag, so you can stop the moment it looks right.
5. Press Apply (or Enter). The selected pixels come out of the mask and the canvas updates.

One click won't always catch everything. If there's a separate patch of the same desk on the other side of the watch, click that region and Apply again. Selections stack. The flood fill is contiguous and works in RGB color distance from the click point, so each disconnected region needs its own click.

Walkthrough: restoring a piece that got cut off

Imagine the model erased the thin shoulder strap of a handbag because the strap was the same color as the wall behind it. You want to bring it back.

1. Click Restore in the toolbar (or press R).
2. Switch to Color Select (or press S).
3. The canvas changes. Instead of the masked product on a checker pattern, you see the full original photo, with everything currently outside the mask tinted dark red. That tinted region is "the part the auto-mask removed." That's where your strap is hiding. You can't restore what you can't see, which is why the view switches.
4. Click on the strap. It reads as a slightly red-tinted version of its original color. A green overlay appears, covering the connected pixels close to that color, including other parts of the strap with the same tone.
5. Drag the tolerance slider until the green overlay covers the whole strap without bleeding into the wall.
6. Press Apply. The strap goes back into the mask and the canvas reverts to the normal masked view.

That canvas swap is the part that confuses people on the first try. It happens only in Restore + Color Select. Erase doesn't do it: erasing needs the current mask in view, not the original.

Tips for tricky edges

Color Select handles big regions well. For wisps and edges you'll want the brush, and you'll want it small and zoomed in.

• Zoom in first. Ctrl+scroll to zoom, middle-mouse drag to pan, 0 to reset. A percentage indicator and reset button appear on the canvas once you're past 100%. Try doing pixel work at 100% and then at 400% and you'll never go back.
• Use a small brush. Drop the size to 5–10 px for hair and glass. Big brushes are for filling regions, not tracing edges.
• Switch tools without leaving Brush mode. R and E flip between Restore and Erase while you stay in Brush. Useful along a boundary where the auto-mask both added and dropped pixels.
• Trust the cursor color. Red outline means you're about to erase, green means restore. If the color doesn't match what you intend, change tools before you click.
• Glass and other transparent materials usually need a mix: restore the rim, erase the interior. A Color Select click on the rim with moderate tolerance often catches the whole outline at once.

Keyboard shortcuts

Reset, and what "commit" actually means

The Reset button on the brush toolbar wipes every edit from the current session and restores the auto-generated mask. No confirmation prompt, no undo stack, but also not destructive: brush edits don't overwrite the auto-mask until you export. While you're in Studio Mode, the original ML output is always one Reset away. If you're not sure your edits are an improvement, keep going. If you ruin it, Reset and try again.

Wrapping up

Most cleanups go fast once the keys are in your fingers. Tap E to erase or R to restore, S for Color Select, click the region, Apply. Repeat as needed. For the wisps, zoom in with Ctrl+scroll and use a small brush.

Open Studio Mode on any photo to try it. If you don't have ListingGems yet, you can grab it from the download page, or look at the full feature list first.