{
  "date": "2026-10-27",
  "scope": "Three tools, three portraits, signed-out free mode, default automatic cutouts. No brush edits, new backgrounds, accounts or payments.",
  "disclosure": "BusinessHeadshots and AiIndex share ownership.",
  "limitations": [
    "Small subjective sample, not a general quality ranking.",
    "No ground-truth masks or accuracy scores.",
    "Source photos were downloaded with a 1600px long-side cap. The exact same three files were uploaded to each tool.",
    "Output sizes differ because this compares the free signed-out offers, not equal-resolution models.",
    "No private user photos were uploaded. Stock models do not endorse these tools.",
    "No timed performance benchmark; browser automation waits are not service processing times."
  ],
  "photos": [
    {
      "id": "soft-smile",
      "outputId": "soft-smile",
      "title": "Loose curls against a plain background",
      "author": "Vitaly Gariev",
      "source": "https://unsplash.com/photos/young-woman-with-curly-hair-smiling-gently-Cx3C8JdD1Ws",
      "license": "https://unsplash.com/license",
      "notes": "The face looks fine in all three. The curls are trickier: Pixelcut left broad patches of the blue-gray background around them. BusinessHeadshots removed more of that background, but left rough hair edges and a pale line along the right shoulder. Pixian also lost some fine strands and left background between the lower curls."
    },
    {
      "id": "white-shirt",
      "outputId": "white-shirt",
      "title": "A white shirt and a wooden chair",
      "author": "Noemi Jimenez",
      "source": "https://www.pexels.com/photo/portrait-of-a-man-wearing-white-shirt-16686151/",
      "license": "https://www.pexels.com/license/",
      "notes": "The face and shirt look fine in all three. Look lower down, though: Pixelcut kept much of the chair. BusinessHeadshots and Pixian removed it, along with part of the trousers. That missing detail is easy to overlook if you only check the face."
    },
    {
      "id": "outdoor",
      "outputId": "outdoor",
      "title": "Fine hair caught in the sunlight",
      "author": "Cemrecan Yurtman",
      "source": "https://unsplash.com/photos/a-close-up-of-a-person-with-curly-hair-ih03D0F6M6M",
      "license": "https://unsplash.com/license",
      "notes": "This photo gave all three tools trouble. They left a pale strip of the old background around the hair, and some fine strands disappeared. We would still tidy up those edges before using any of these on a dark background."
    }
  ],
  "tools": [
    {
      "id": "businessheadshots",
      "name": "BusinessHeadshots",
      "url": "https://businessheadshots.io/tools/headshot-background-remover",
      "caveat": "Let us download all three at the size we uploaded: 1600 pixels on the longest side. No account needed."
    },
    {
      "id": "pixelcut",
      "name": "Pixelcut",
      "url": "https://www.pixelcut.ai/background-remover",
      "caveat": "Let us download smaller copies, with a longest side of 1080 pixels. The download menu offered the original size for free after signing in; we did not try that option."
    },
    {
      "id": "pixian",
      "name": "Pixian",
      "url": "https://pixian.ai/",
      "caveat": "Gave us the smallest files in free mode: 665 by 374 pixels for the first photo and 408 by 612 for the other two. We chose transparent PNGs and kept the full photos without cropping."
    }
  ],
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