Since this method is far too nuanced and complicated to try explaining via written text, I’d suggest watching the following video tutorial I created a while back. Grab the Paths tool by clicking the icon indicated above or by using the keyboard shortcut, which is B. This is the ideal method to use if there is simply not enough contrast between your image’s subject and background for the previous methods to work. The Paths tool allows you to create a selection by manually placing smooth lines and curves via node placement. This is the method that was used to crop the bird image in the header of this post - the Paths tool. This is the method that requires the most skill and takes the most time, but it’s also the best method of using GIMP to delete background to transparent in my opinion because it produces the cleanest, most professional result. If it’s easier for you to create a selection from your foreground/subject instead, go ahead and do so, then just go to Select > Clear before deleting the selection. Once you’d created a selection from your background, press Delete on your keyboard, or go to Edit > Clear if you’re using Mac. You can also select additional shades of the same color by holding Shift and clicking on them as well. You can increase the size of the selection by clicking and dragging to the right, or decrease it by clicking and dragging to the left. Grab the Select By Color tool by clicking on the icon highlighted above, or by simply pressing Shift + O on your keyboard.Īs previously mentioned, simply click on a segment of the image that contains the color you’d like to delete. This tool works great if you have an image where your background consists of just a single color and maybe a few different shades of it. Once you click on a specific pixel with this tool, it will create a selection around it and every other pixel with the same color. Method 2: Select By Color ToolĪn even simpler method - similar to the Fuzzy Select Tool - is the Select By Color tool. Nothing will change visibly on the screen when you do this, but what happened is you inverted the selection so that you now have the background selected and not the foreground. Once you’ve done that, simply press Delete. Since you want to delete the background and not the subject, simply go to Select > Invert. If you created the selection by clicking on your subject, you’ll only have your subject selected. If you created the selection by clicking on the background, simply press Delete on your keyboard (or go to Edit > Clear if using Mac) and you will have successfully used GIMP to delete your image’s background to transparent. This will create a dotted outline around your subject known as a selection. You can add to your selection by holding Shift and clicking on another area, and you can remove unwanted selections by holding Control and clicking on them. Drag the cursor to the right to increase the size of the selection and to the left to decrease it. With the tool selected, click and drag on your subject to create a selection. It would be great to be able to throw a bunch of PNG files in a directory and have a program auto-composite them, maybe using filenames for Z-ordering.Grab the Fuzzy Select Tool by clicking on the icon highlighted in the above image, or simply press U on your keyboard. Also it would be great if GIMP could output ImageMagick code for combining layers in a way that approximates GIMP’s compositions- possibly in the comment metadata. My main problem with it is there is no “save all” functionality, nor is there a “save layers to separate PNG files” type dealie, nor automated. Some do, like Firefux.) It seems it doesn’t exist anymore, though. I think pasted layers would only have an alpha defined if they were cut/copied with alpha (some viewers and browsers don’t have that ability, like Irfanview. In a previous version of GIMP, there was some option to auto-add alpha to any non color-indexed images coming in via ‘open file’. I put in ‘A’, possibly reassigning something else. Search for “alpha”, it will be your first hit “layers-alpha-add”. Goto Edit/Keyboard Shortcuts, a Window will open. I should add my fave method, which is approx 1 second faster than the others. Thanks Thomas, and BTW: nice site you got here.
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