Please Help: How do you take out the background of a picture?

[elmonshea]

I am sure there is an easy way to do this, beside using the freehand crop.
How do you take the colored background away and make it clear or no background???

Thank you for any help...

 

[milliepie]

I am sure there is an easy way to do this, beside using the freehand crop.
How do you take the colored background away and make it clear or no background???

Thank you for any help...

I think it depends on the program. I use the magic wand tool to click on the area I don't want and adjust it as I need. I wasn't sure if you wanted help with it or just asking, but here it is for you without the background if you need.

 

[Maize&Blue]

What program your you using???

 

[elmonshea]

maize&BLUE, I have print shop for quick fixes
and Photo Shop


Thanks milliepie!

 

[Maize&Blue]

maize&BLUE, I have print shop for quick fixes
and Photo Shop


Thanks milliepie!

I am using photoshop too.
Use the wand tool and click the background color. This should create a moving dotted line around the image. Remember it will select colors the are similar so you may need to trim around areas you want to keep. For your image, it could quite possiblely be Tiana's hair.To the right of your screen you should have your adjustment/mask window. click the mask tab, then click the box with the little circle with a plus sign in front of it (I think it's call, "add a pixel mask"). And BLAM!!! you now have your background only showing my bad. Before you click the "add a pixel mask" you will need to inverse the selected area.

Click "edit" and then "step backward". Your image should now be as it was before. Click "select" "Inverse" and now click "add a pixel image". You should now have only the image you want to "cut out.

Does that help!
Keith

 

[elmonshea]

Thank you for the quick reply.
I do not see the adjustment/mask window. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Got the picture up and used the magic wand and then it shows some stuff on the right but nothing about adjustment/ mask.
I think this is why I ask you great DiSigners for the disigns instead of doing it on my own..


I will try again after I get the kids from school!

 

[Maize&Blue]

here is a picture of what mine looks like...

 

[elmonshea]

Here is what mine looks like.

?? Not sure what I am doing, but I am going to give up for the night..
Thank You for trying to help me..
Makes me appreciate all of you guys and gals a Lot more!!!!

 

[ShellsShirts]

Here's the way I do it in Photoshop CS3. I too, don't have the pixel mask. I only have a quick mask.

Open the photo. Create the background layer to "layer 0" by double clicking the lock icon on the layers palette. It will open a window to create layer 0, click OK.

Take your magic wand and in the menu bar at the top left, make the tolerance lower than 32 (default) if you are having problem selecting too many similar pixels. This will help the magic wand only select that same color pixel. You may have to play with this so it doesn't select the hair or other parts of the picture. Hold the shift key while selecting to add to the selection.

Once the black is selected, I add a feather to the selection to get rid of any jagged pixels or artifacts which can occur in low res image. Go to -->Select (menu)-->modify-->feather and select 1 or 2 pixes. Click ok. Now you can delete the black. You will have a fill of none (grey boxes) as the background. You can now drag and drop this image onto any image or save it with no background (psd only) for future use. Good luck!

 

[elmonshea]

Thank You Shell......
I got all done except,,, When I save it is still on a white background.
I have it on photoshop with just the picture and the background is the little gray blocks, but after I save it and try to put it on top of another design with color, it has the surounding white background color...

I know I am feeling so dumb at the moment, because for the life of me I do not know what I am doing..

 

[ShellsShirts]

You can only save it as a photoshop document (PSD), not a jpg, tif, gif, png, etc., with the layer box checked on the save as dialog box. Do not flatten, merge layers or make your file a background. This wipes out the transparency.

Go to Save as-->Format should be Photoshop and the layer box should be checked underneath the format. I just did this with one of my files. It saves fine and still has the transparency when opened again.

To place in a file, just open your transparent image and also open your background image. Drag and drop your princess/frog image onto your other image. You can also copy and paste from one image into the new image (when you have the grey boxes) It should work just fine.

Good luck!

Note: If you have lost the transparency and now have the solid white background, you have to do it all over again deleting the white instead of the black.