Does anyone know how to convert an image with a colored background to a transparent background?

Thanks.

This is an existing image, btw, I know how to do it for new images.

Forgot to say....I can change the layer opacity but as an existing image only shows one layer then it makes the whole thing disappear ;(

Is the bg color in a layer by itself or is it part of a flattened image?

I might be able to help. I'll look for you on ichat.

Would be great to see some clear instructions posted here. Getting a transparent background is a pain as far as I can tell.

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Well the technique I use is different depending on the image and what is in the background (trees, water etc).

For example, is the image already shadowed? This makes it trickier.

There are a few ways to sking this cat.

I usually start by copying the image to a new layer, and altering the colors so that a more defined image boundry is present. Then you can either use the majic wand (with some modification) or use PS's extract tool.

Once you have the extracted image, you can gaussian blur the edges to make it look smooth again. I would then reduce the size of the image slightly.

Background image erasor? Thats how I do it normally...

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

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Thanks everyone - turns out it was so easy - I couldn't find the background eraser tool but all I had to do was click and hold the eraser button and then you get the background eraser option which lets you click wherever you want to turn that part transparent.

I just zoomed the image so every pixel was huge and then it was simple!

I used to have a tool - I think it was called "gif + web" or something (alchemy.com or mindworks.com - kind of a 'spooky' site - something like that) anyway... you could take an existing image, click on the background and make it disappear. It wasn't perfect, but it was designed specifically for making transparent images.

Good Luck!