changing white background to transparent 1

[gsbbr]

I am new to PhotoShop. I have checked past messages, and I think maybe the contributors are leaving out a step somewhere because they know what they're doing and figure it's obvious. I've consulted the manual and PhotoShop Help and am still stumped. I know this is an elementary question.

I have PhotoShop 7 & Illustrator 10. I have an image of balloons & confetti--lots of little lines, shapes, balloon strings, etc. I want the background to be clear instead of white. The image is a .jpg, and I converted it to a .gif as well.

I tried the magic wand (there's a good contrast between the images and the white background), but there are so many little shapes and lines that I got lost in what I had selected and what I hadn't. I also didn't know what to do after I'd selected the images. What tells the program to pull the image out of the white background?

Can anyone help me? At my level, I need steps. I work for a nonprofit that has no money to send me to class, and I'm obviously looking under the wrong keywords in the manual, or else something is just not clicking. Thanks for your patience.

 

[kylebellamy]

Let me ask you a question: What color is the background going to be that this goes on? What type of project? Depending on what your doing, there are different options we can persue.

As for learning, I've never taken a photoshop class in my life so don't use that as an excuse for not learning ( I realize that that sounds confrontational but it's truly not meant to be ). The way I did it was to go to places like

http://www.rainworld.com/psworkshop/

which has a ton of things to teach you. Go through them one after the other, buy the books (yeah, they cost a lot but it's worth every penny) and do it until you pass out.

the cool thing about this program is that it is truly worth every second you put into it. the more you learn the more amazing you relaize it is.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[gsbbr]

The background needs to be a buff color. I have the buff color in CMYK and RGB. For this task, replacing the white background with the buff color would be just as good as making it transparent.

I have gotten the buff background on all the images (using the pen tool) except for this nutty one, with all the lines and strings and tiny confetti-like pieces.

Re classes: I teach myself programs all the time. I am proficient in Quark, several databases, know some Illustrator, and am just starting in PhotoShop. I actually pick up programs fairly easily, and the manuals help with most of my questions. (I check them out of the library and keep them as long as I can.)

I have not taken classes either, but I think they are useful and wish we had a budget for them. There are some excellent teachers on these forums who have helped me with some sticky problems at times, and I've learned so much from other people's questions as well.

Graphics work is not my specialty (obviously). However, it falls to me--as one of the many things I do--because there are only two of us, and the other person doesn't know anything about these programs.

 

[kylebellamy]

Falling to me is exactly the reason I learned everything I have too... lol

The job I currently have in prepress I basically walked into and faked my way through it till I had the skills to be competent.

Would it be ok if you lost some of the tiny stuff? I suppose it depends on what happenes but try this first:

Use the Magic Wand tool, set the tolerance to 15px and click in the white you wnat to eliminate. If you think you can get it closer, the increase the toleraqnce till it's tight but not too tight. Once you think you have it, go to the Selectmenu then Modify -> Expand and enter 1 in the box and hit OK. It should move into the stuff that you didn't select and you may lose some of the truly tiny things but if you don't loose too much then hit the Delete key and it will eliminate everything. and make sure you have the background color be the one you want it to end up as.

Tell me if this works...

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[kylebellamy]

If you want, email the artwork and a detail of the background color and I'll see what can be done and detail the steps for you so you can do it yourself next time.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[gsbbr]

Oh my gosh, thank you!! I would never have figured that out, and I don't remember reading anything remotely like it in the manuals, although it must be there somewhere.

You hit my stubborn streak when you offered to do it for me. I thought, No way, I'm going to figure this out if it kills me! (It didn't; in fact, it was very easy with your instructions.)

I also followed your steps with past images, and lo and behold, it works -- would have saved me a lot of pen outlining time, too.

You have really helped me because our website background is this buff color, and with every image I post, I want to delete the white background beforehand so the image looks a part of the page and not just slapped on there.

Thanks again for taking the time to help a novice.

(I gave you a star for your second reply, and somehow I got stars on all your posts, which of course I am grateful for. It's Friday; maybe I'd better call it a week and go home soon....)

 

[kylebellamy]

No problem and have a great weekend. If you need any more help, email me and I'll do what I can.

Kyle

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[DanceCat]

When I try kylebellamy's instructions, I get a black box around my image. When I copy and paste it into Illustrator, the black box comes with it. Could anyone tell me why this doesn't work for me?

I am running Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10, too.

 

[kylebellamy]

What is your background color set to? If it's black, you get a black background when importing.

If you want to export the image to Illustrator, do the steps above and then save the file as a PNG as they have transparency that works great in vector progams like Flash and Illustrator.

The problem I'm having in coming up with a solution is I have no idea what you mean by a black box. Could you post a pic of the before and after? I could figure it out quickly if you would.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[DanceCat]

Setting my background to white and saving as a PNG file worked great! Thanks so much!

 

[Zilch]

The best way to remove a background that I've found is once you do what Kylebellamy said, you just hit Shift+Ctrl+I (Select > Inverse) then ctrl+X (cut) and finally ctrl+v (paste) this will put the image on a second layer with no background, you can then delete the bottom layer and do as you please.

Also, if a image doesn't look just right on the edges, I'd suggest a light blur, this will make it look a bit fuzzier, true, but nobody knows how sharp it was in the first place, it still looks fine, and the border kinda fades away.

Hope I helped.

 

[viol8ion]

If these images are going on a website, you could easily "save for web", and select GIF format. You then have the option to make the white background transparent. Then it doesn't matter what color the background of the website it, the image will blend in perfectly (assuming the image has no soft edges or gradients).

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[kylebellamy]

First of all, the background problem was the main issue but also in importing to Illustrator, using the Save for Web option tends to muddy up the image for print work, which is what you generally use Illustrator for.

Only use the save for web function to... save for web. There are plenty of other choices in the Save As menu for other media and even for the web if you want different types of control over your images.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[viol8ion]

>>First of all, the background problem was the main issue but also in importing to Illustrator, using the Save for Web option tends to muddy up the image for print work, which is what you generally use Illustrator for. <<

True, however, I was referring to this particular question:

>>You have really helped me because our website background is this buff color, and with every image I post, I want to delete the white background beforehand so the image looks a part of the page and not just slapped on there.<<

And if the end result is to be web display and not print, then converting to GIF via &quot;save for web&quot; might be the easiest method for a newbie. Plus, save for web does not affect the original image, which will still be in whatever format it was designed in, hopefully PSD or TIF. And if the destination is print, then the white background isue is moot, as white backgrounds will not print, and all they have to do is use the cream colored paper.



When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[gsbbr]

I started this thread and am still following it. Thanks for the continued education. I have learned from every post.

Thank you all -- for your enthusiasm for your field, your kindness, and your generous sharing of knowledge with us who are newbies.