How to make a transparent background

[AlanJohn]

I'm mildly disappointed whenever someone in the ava/sig/wallpaper request thread asks something very simple and wastes an image editors valuable time. I'm talking about removing a background.
Believe me, this is very simple to do.

Spoiler: GIMP

First, we need to give the image an alpha for transparency, as shown on this pic.
Simply right-click your layer and select "add alpha"

Now we need to select the area that we want to be transparent, I prefer using the wand tool for this.

Now the tricky part is adjusting the threshold, just play with it until you get your desired result.

After that, press the "Delete" button.

IMPORTANT:
Save as .gif or .png. .JPEG does not support transparency!

Spoiler: Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop
In Adobe Photoshop it might seem to be a little complicated, but trust me, even you can do it!

First step: convert the background image into layer.

Pull out the magic wand tool, and adjust the tolerance.
Then delete the selected, it should now look like this:

Save it as either .gif or .png, you decide.

Suggested by SoulSnatcher
Paint.Net
Open your image.

Pick the Magic Wand

, select the white areas and then press delete. The white areas should appear as a checkerboard.

The finished product.

 

[DarkStriker]

Download GIMP here:
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Download Paint.NET here:
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

 

[Gahars]

Nice guide. You should probably also put in the FAQ forum as well.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

Nice guide. You should probably also put in the FAQ forum as well.

I've got a better idea.

*pinned!*

 

[Shockwind]

I already knew how to make a transparent background before you posted this kind of thread, but anyways.. nice guide!

 

[AlanJohn]

I already knew how to make a transparent background before you posted this kind of thread, but anyways.. nice guide!

It was made for Übern00bs, not for image editors.

Something easy like this is quite basic for image editors, im not surprised you dont know how to do that.

 

[Rydian]

Might want to add a little note that a checkered background means areas that are transparent/translucent, so people don't get all "IT DOESN'T ERASE IT MAKES IT CHECKERED".

 

[kevan]

You should throw in a Paint.net guide to make this complete.

 

[Deleted_171835]

You should throw in a Paint.net guide to make this complete.

Done.

Spoiler

[titleaint.Net]
Open your image.

Pick the Magic Wand

, select the white areas and then press delete. The white areas should appear as a checkerboard.

The finished product.

I suggest you add this, AlanJohn.

 

[AlanJohn]

Updated 9/9 2011.

-added paint.net tutorial
-deleted cluster-fragmented damaged memory error for R4 users
-added paint.net tutorial

 

[kevan]

Soulsnatcher and his amazing art skills!

(Jokes) I'm sure you could have done better!

 

[KingdomBlade]

You should probably add that clicking shift expands the selection with another, in the event that the background is multicolored.

And that Photoshop has magic eraser.

 

[Rayder]

One day, I'll actually correct my avatar to turn the white border transparent. For some reason, my brain wouldn't function the day I made it (probably was too stoned....weedies....something I don't much bother with these days) and I couldn't remember how to do it, but it occurred to me only a few days later (without looking up anything) how to do it. I've just been too lazy to bother. It looks good enough as is, IMO.

I use Paint Shop Pro 9, BTW. Yeah, probably not the best app to use (not to mention old and bought-out by Corel), but it's what I'm more or less familiar with and what I use for ALL my pics and gifs. Well technically, the gif editor was an addon to PSP9 called Animation Shop, but whatever.....I do alright for not reading any instructions and just muddling through stuff, just like how I used to do in the old Commodore 64 days. I'm a fart smeller....err....I mean smart feller. Heh.

But you know, it's cool that someone bothered to make a tutorial for that kind of stuff. Kudos for the effort.

 

[kevan]

^ now that you mention the background with your ava it sticks out to me D=

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

I've used Irfanview for years. It's not an image editor, but a viewer, and it works really neat for viewing and saving image files in certain ways. You can set transparencies with it, but you can't set alpha control. I find it very useful to adjust images on the fly, as Photoshop takes a while to load.

 

[AlanJohn]

Updated 03/11/2016.
Wow, I can't believe my grammar was that bad in 2011. I mostly rewrote the entire post so you can now actually read it. I'm amazed by the fact that nobody complained about the terrible wording when this was first posted.

 

[VinsCool]

If you can add photofiltre studio to the tutorial, here's the following methods:

1- use the wand tool and colour tolerance like we do in other apps
2- (my personal method) make the full background in a high contrast colour (pink or green works well) and paint details where things clip, then make this colour transparent.
3- use the snipping tool, if anything else fails, or is too complicated to get in a plain colour. Polygonal snipping tool + smooth borders work well in that case.