diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/Daemon.cs b/tools/OcrDaemon/Daemon.cs
index 9c2e491..2fc36d5 100644
--- a/tools/OcrDaemon/Daemon.cs
+++ b/tools/OcrDaemon/Daemon.cs
@@ -105,9 +105,10 @@ static class Daemon
     private static object HandleDiffOcrPython(OcrHandler ocrHandler, PythonOcrBridge pythonBridge, Request request)
     {
         var sw = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew();
-        var p = request.Threshold > 0
-            ? new DiffOcrParams { DiffThresh = request.Threshold }
-            : new DiffOcrParams();
+        // Use default params (same wide crop as Tesseract path).
+        // Background subtraction below eliminates stash items from the image.
+        var p = new DiffOcrParams();
+        if (request.Threshold > 0) p.DiffThresh = request.Threshold;
 
         var cropResult = ocrHandler.DiffCrop(request, p);
         if (cropResult == null)
@@ -115,22 +116,29 @@ static class Daemon
 
         var (cropped, refCropped, current, region) = cropResult.Value;
         using var _current = current;
-        using var _refCropped = refCropped;
+
+        // Apply background subtraction to isolate tooltip text.
+        // This removes stash items and game world — only tooltip text remains.
+        // No upscale (upscale=1) to keep the image small for EasyOCR speed.
+        // Hard threshold (softThreshold=false) produces clean binary for OCR.
+        using var processed = ImagePreprocessor.PreprocessWithBackgroundSub(
+            cropped, refCropped, dimPercentile: 40, textThresh: 60, upscale: 1, softThreshold: false);
+        cropped.Dispose();
+        refCropped.Dispose();
         var diffMs = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
 
-        // Save crop to requested path if provided
+        // Save processed crop if path provided
         if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(request.Path))
         {
             var dir = Path.GetDirectoryName(request.Path);
             if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(dir) && !Directory.Exists(dir))
                 Directory.CreateDirectory(dir);
-            cropped.Save(request.Path, ImageUtils.GetImageFormat(request.Path));
+            processed.Save(request.Path, ImageUtils.GetImageFormat(request.Path));
         }
 
-        // Send crop to Python via base64 over pipe (no temp file I/O)
+        // Send processed image to Python OCR via base64
         sw.Restart();
-        var ocrResult = pythonBridge.OcrFromBitmap(cropped, request.Engine!);
-        cropped.Dispose();
+        var ocrResult = pythonBridge.OcrFromBitmap(processed, request.Engine!);
         var ocrMs = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
 
         Console.Error.WriteLine($"  diff-ocr-python: diff={diffMs}ms ocr={ocrMs}ms total={diffMs + ocrMs}ms crop={region.Width}x{region.Height}");
diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/OcrHandler.cs b/tools/OcrDaemon/OcrHandler.cs
index 9fab0c8..04dbe07 100644
--- a/tools/OcrDaemon/OcrHandler.cs
+++ b/tools/OcrDaemon/OcrHandler.cs
@@ -144,7 +144,6 @@ class OcrHandler(TesseractEngine engine)
         int rowRangeLen = bestRowEnd - bestRowStart + 1;
         if (rowRangeLen <= 200)
         {
-            // Small range: serial is faster than Parallel overhead
             for (int y = bestRowStart; y <= bestRowEnd; y++)
             {
                 int rowOffset = y * stride;
diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_crop.png b/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_crop.png
deleted file mode 100644
index f30b2b8..0000000
Binary files a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_crop.png and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_tight.png b/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_tight.png
deleted file mode 100644
index adb91df..0000000
Binary files a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex1_tight.png and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_crop.png b/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_crop.png
deleted file mode 100644
index fbd8e77..0000000
Binary files a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_crop.png and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_tight.png b/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_tight.png
deleted file mode 100644
index b971e17..0000000
Binary files a/tools/OcrDaemon/tessdata/images/vertex2_tight.png and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/tools/test-easyocr.js b/tools/test-easyocr.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49b247b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/test-easyocr.js
@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+import { spawn } from 'child_process';
+import { join } from 'path';
+
+const EXE = join('tools', 'OcrDaemon', 'bin', 'Release', 'net8.0-windows10.0.19041.0', 'OcrDaemon.exe');
+const TESSDATA = join('tools', 'OcrDaemon', 'bin', 'Release', 'net8.0-windows10.0.19041.0', 'tessdata');
+const SAVE_DIR = join('tools', 'OcrDaemon', 'bin', 'Release', 'net8.0-windows10.0.19041.0', 'tessdata', 'images');
+
+const expected = {
+  vertex1: [
+    'The Vertex', 'Tribal Mask', 'Helmet', 'Quality: +20%',
+    'Evasion Rating: 79', 'Energy Shield: 34', 'Requires: Level 33',
+    '16% Increased Life Regeneration Rate', 'Has no Attribute Requirements',
+    '+15% to Chaos Resistance', 'Skill gems have no attribute requirements',
+    '+3 to level of all skills', '15% increased mana cost efficiency',
+    'Twice Corrupted', 'Asking Price:', '7x Divine Orb',
+  ],
+  vertex2: [
+    'The Vertex', 'Tribal Mask', 'Helmet', 'Quality: +20%',
+    'Evasion Rating: 182', 'Energy Shield: 77', 'Requires: Level 33',
+    '+29 To Spirit', '+1 to Level of All Minion Skills',
+    'Has no Attribute Requirements', '130% increased Evasion and Energy Shield',
+    '27% Increased Critical Hit Chance', '+13% to Chaos Resistance',
+    '+2 to level of all skills', 'Twice Corrupted', 'Asking Price:', '35x Divine Orb',
+  ],
+};
+
+function levenshteinSim(a, b) {
+  a = a.toLowerCase(); b = b.toLowerCase();
+  if (a === b) return 1;
+  const la = a.length, lb = b.length;
+  if (!la || !lb) return 0;
+  const d = Array.from({ length: la + 1 }, (_, i) => { const r = new Array(lb + 1); r[0] = i; return r; });
+  for (let j = 0; j <= lb; j++) d[0][j] = j;
+  for (let i = 1; i <= la; i++)
+    for (let j = 1; j <= lb; j++) {
+      const cost = a[i-1] === b[j-1] ? 0 : 1;
+      d[i][j] = Math.min(d[i-1][j]+1, d[i][j-1]+1, d[i-1][j-1]+cost);
+    }
+  return 1 - d[la][lb] / Math.max(la, lb);
+}
+
+async function run() {
+  const proc = spawn(EXE, [], { stdio: ['pipe', 'pipe', 'pipe'] });
+  let buffer = '';
+  let resolveNext;
+  proc.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
+    buffer += data.toString();
+    let idx;
+    while ((idx = buffer.indexOf('\n')) !== -1) {
+      const line = buffer.slice(0, idx).trim();
+      buffer = buffer.slice(idx + 1);
+      if (!line) continue;
+      try { const p = JSON.parse(line); if (resolveNext) { const r = resolveNext; resolveNext = null; r(p); } } catch {}
+    }
+  });
+  proc.stderr.on('data', (data) => process.stderr.write(data));
+  function sendCmd(cmd) { return new Promise((resolve) => { resolveNext = resolve; proc.stdin.write(JSON.stringify(cmd) + '\n'); }); }
+  await new Promise((resolve) => { resolveNext = resolve; });
+
+  const cases = [
+    { id: 'vertex1', image: 'vertex1.png', snapshot: 'vertex-snapshot.png' },
+    { id: 'vertex2', image: 'vertex2.png', snapshot: 'vertex-snapshot.png' },
+  ];
+
+  for (const tc of cases) {
+    const snapPath = join(TESSDATA, 'images', tc.snapshot);
+    const imgPath = join(TESSDATA, 'images', tc.image);
+
+    // 3 runs: first saves crop, rest just timing
+    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
+      await sendCmd({ cmd: 'snapshot', file: snapPath });
+      const savePath = i === 0 ? join(SAVE_DIR, `${tc.id}_easyocr_crop.png`) : undefined;
+      const t0 = performance.now();
+      const resp = await sendCmd({ cmd: 'diff-ocr', file: imgPath, engine: 'easyocr', ...(savePath ? { path: savePath } : {}) });
+      const ms = (performance.now() - t0).toFixed(0);
+      const region = resp.region;
+      const lines = (resp.lines || []).map(l => l.text.trim()).filter(l => l.length > 0);
+
+      if (i === 0) {
+        // Accuracy check on first run
+        const exp = expected[tc.id];
+        const used = new Set();
+        let matched = 0, fuzzy = 0, missed = 0;
+        for (const e of exp) {
+          let bestIdx = -1, bestSim = 0;
+          for (let j = 0; j < lines.length; j++) {
+            if (used.has(j)) continue;
+            const sim = levenshteinSim(e, lines[j]);
+            if (sim > bestSim) { bestSim = sim; bestIdx = j; }
+          }
+          if (bestIdx >= 0 && bestSim >= 0.75) { used.add(bestIdx); if (bestSim >= 0.95) matched++; else fuzzy++; }
+          else { missed++; console.log(`  MISS: ${e}${bestIdx >= 0 ? ` (best: "${lines[bestIdx]}", sim=${bestSim.toFixed(2)})` : ''}`); }
+        }
+        console.log(`${tc.id}: ${ms}ms  crop=${region?.width}x${region?.height} at (${region?.x},${region?.y})  ${matched} OK / ${fuzzy}~ / ${missed} miss  lines=${lines.length}${savePath ? '  [saved]' : ''}`);
+      } else {
+        console.log(`${tc.id}: ${ms}ms  crop=${region?.width}x${region?.height}`);
+      }
+    }
+    console.log();
+  }
+  proc.stdin.end();
+  proc.kill();
+}
+run().catch(console.error);