n8n Workflow: Apify Background Removal + Upscale in Google Sheets

Remove backgrounds and upscale product cutouts in bulk—directly from your Google Sheet with n8n + Apify

This n8n workflow reads product image URLs from Google Sheets, uses Apify Background Remover to generate transparent PNG cutouts, then upscales the results with Apify Image Upscaler—writing the final image URLs, dimensions, and status back to the same sheet.

What this workflow does

• Starts manually and pulls rows from your Google Sheets spreadsheet using an image_url column.
• Deduplicates image URLs to avoid repeated processing, then sends them as a single batch to Apify’s Background Remover API actor for transparent PNG cutouts.
• Maps results back to the original rows by row number, collecting only successful cutout URLs for the next step.
• If cutouts succeed, calls Apify’s Image Upscaler API actor to upscale the cutouts (e.g., 2× via the workflow’s scale setting) and returns final URLs plus width/height.
• Updates Google Sheets with result_url, width, height, status, and error—including failures when applicable.

Use cases

• Bulk preparation of e-commerce images (transparent cutouts + higher-resolution assets) for product catalogs.
• Refreshing product media for a SaaS catalog workflow where image processing runs on demand.
• Automating image cleanup for marketplaces that require consistent, background-removed visuals.

Technical details

• Google Sheets (read + update): expects columns image_url, result_url, width, height, status, error.
• Apify via apify n8n nodes: Background Remover Batch + Image Upscaler Batch.
• Nodes used: manual trigger, if, code, sticky note, and the apify integration.
• Uses an Apify API token credential for both actor steps.

Optional: adjust the upscaling scale (for example, from 2 to 4) and update Apify maximum charge limits as needed.