4 Fixes for Photo Cutout Not Working on iPhone

Key Takeaways

• It’s important to ensure that your iPhone as well as the image you’re editing support Photo Cutout.
• Photo Cutout is only available in select countries, so you can try changing your region to that.
• If all else fails even after a software update to the latest version, a full reset might be the best fix.

Basic Fixes:

• Check if the iPhone Supports Photo Cutout: First, check if your iPhone supports this feature. Photo cutout is only available on iPhones with Apple’s A12 Bionic or newer chipsets. This includes the iPhone 14 series, iPhone 13 series, iPhone 12 series, iPhone 11 series, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, and the iPhone SE (2nd Generation and later).
• Check if the App Supports Photo Cutout: Additionally, you can only extract subjects with Photo Cutout inside first-party apps from Apple, including Photos, Mail, Messages, Notes, and even Safari. If you’re trying to extract photographed subjects using this feature in third-party apps, such as Google Photos, WhatsApp, etc., photo cutout won’t work for you.
• Update to the Latest iOS Version: If you haven’t updated your iPhone to iOS 16 or later, photo cutout may not work for you. To do that, head over to Settings > General > Software Update.

Fix 1: Check if the Photo Is Supported by Photo Cutout

Besides the app you’re in, the photo or video should also be supported by the photo cutout tool before you can use it. Here’s a list of all the image and video formats supported by photo cutout:

• Supported Image Formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, CUR, HEIF, TIFF, DIB, ICO, and XBM.
• Supported Video Formats: M4V, MP4, MOV, and AVI.

If a photo or video has issues using photo cutout, tap on the blue ‘i’ button in the Photos app to see if the file’s format matches any of the above formats.

Furthermore, ensure that the image you’re trying to extract the cutout from has prominent borders that can separate the subject from the background.

Fix 2: Disable Live Photo

Live Photos can often prevent photo cutouts from working correctly on your iPhone. If the image you’re trying to extract the subject from is a Live Photo, you can try turning it off before using photo cutout on your iPhone to see if that helps.

Step 1: Open the Live Photo you want to use with photo cutout. Then, tap the button that says Live. From the options that appear, tap on Off to disable Live Photo.

Step 2: Once done, try to tap and hold on to the subject to see if Photo Cutouts is working or not.

Fix 3: Try Changing the iPhone Region

The photo cutout feature is an extension of Visual Look Up, a feature only available in certain locations across the globe, including the United States, UK, India, Japan, and a handful of other countries. If your region doesn’t support Visual Look Up, photo cutout won’t work.

If that’s the case with your iPhone, we recommend changing its region to the US and see if that helps enable the feature as detailed below:

Step 1: On your iPhone, navigate to Settings > General > Language & Region.

Step 2: Now, tap on Region. Then, from the list of regions, select the United States or any other region that supports Visual Look Up.

Fix 4: Reset All Settings

If the previous solutions didn’t help solve your issues, you could reset all settings on your iPhone. This will help you rule out any issues caused due to changes that you might’ve made to your iPhone. To reset all settings on your iPhone, follow the steps listed below:

Step 1: On your iPhone, navigate to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone.

Step 2: Next, tap on Reset and select the ‘Reset All Settings‘ option.

If resetting all settings also doesn’t help, you can completely reset your iPhone and see if it fixes the photo cutout on your iPhone.