5 Ways To Remove A Background with GIMP

this is nick with logos by nick.com and in this tutorial i'll be demonstrating five different ways in which you can remove the background from a photo and delete it to transparency using and the method you should use depends entirely on the type of image you're working with so it's important to know each of these methods before getting started and before we do get started if you'd like to learn more about how works be sure to check out my series it's a collection of over 60 videos where i go over every tool and feature in and i explain what it is and demonstrate how it works i'll have a link in the description of the video if you want to check that out the first way in which we can delete a background to transparent in is with the fuzzy select tool this tool allows you to create a selection of pixels that are all similar to a sample selection within a localized area this works well on photos where there may be a bit of distinction between the foreground and the background but subtle nuances like gradients and different shades of colors may get in the way to use this method make sure to right click on your image layer and click on add alpha channel first to ensure that your selection will be deleted to transparency if the selection is grayed out then that means you already have an alpha channel added and you're good to go now grab the fuzzy select tool and make sure you have anti-aliasing feather edges and draw mask all checked the draw mask setting will generate a colored overlay to help give you a better idea of the selection you're grabbing once selected hold a click over the portion of your image you'd like to delete the colored mask represents the selection you're grabbing click and drag downward to increase the threshold and upward to reduce the threshold once you're happy with your selection let go of the click and press delete on your keyboard to delete that segment you may have to repeat this process a few times based on the composition of your image the select by color tool allows you to simultaneously select every pixel in your image that has the same color and it even allows for some variants this is ideal for vector designs and simple illustrations to delete your background to transparency using this tool first make sure that you have anti-aliasing and draw mask enabled from the tool settings and you may want to enable feather edges as well if you're working with the photograph if your image is more of an illustration like my example here you may be better off leaving it unchecked once you have your settings in place simply click and hold on any area of your image that is represented by the color of your background much like the fuzzy select tool you can manually adjust the threshold by moving your mouse up or down once you've generated a selection you're happy with let go of the click and press delete on your keyboard another way that you can delete your background to transparent using is with the paths tool this is more of a manual approach that takes a bit of time and patience but it produces the most accurate and crisp results with the paths tool selected begin clicking around the edges of your subject to place individual points that will make up an outline you can curve the lines between them by clicking and dragging them in the direction you'd like them to go then by manually adjusting the handles to continue drawing your outline make sure to click on the point you most recently created and then continue on outlining your subject once you're finished you can close the path by holding ctrl and clicking on your original point then you can press enter on your keyboard to create a selection around your subject but considering that it's the background we want to select we'll have to invert this selection by going to select invert and then press delete on the keyboard a more advanced technique for deleting your background to transparency in would be to use a layer mask this would be ideal for images where you have strands of hair and other fine details that would otherwise be difficult to select manually and i must warn you that this method will only work on images where there's a lot of contrast between the subject and the background like you see here with my example to utilize this method right click on your layer and create a duplicate of it then navigate to colors saturation and bring the scale all the way down and click ok then navigate to colors curves and manually adjust the top and bottom nodes so that the subject is mostly filled with black and the background is mostly filled with white now invert your color by going to colors invert and copy this image by going to edit copy visible now you can turn off the visibility of that layer by clicking on the little eyeball icon next to it next right click your original layer and go to add layer mask leave the default settings as they are and click ok then go to edit paste and then click the little green icon of an anchor to place that into the layer mask you'll notice that the black areas remain visible and the white areas become transparent it probably won't be perfect though so you'll have to grab a white brush and fill in the areas that shouldn't have been deleted like i mentioned earlier this is a more advanced technique that takes a bit of practice i'll have a link in the description to a tutorial where i went over these steps more thoroughly so it's easier to follow along with and understand the final method that i'll be going over is the foreground select tool this method would also be a good choice if your subject has a lot of fine details like strands of hair to get started grab the foreground select tool and manually draw a rough outline around your subject don't worry about it being precise this is just meant to be a very rudimentary tracing bring the line back to the starting point and then press enter on your keyboard this will create a dark blue area over your background and a light blue area over your foreground what you can do now is manually brush in the areas of your subject making sure not to get too close to the boundaries you can increase and decrease the size of your brush by using your left and right bracket keys on your keyboard again don't worry too much about this being a precise tracing this can be a simple rudimentary outline once you're finished you can toggle the preview setting to see how it looks if you're happy with how it looks press enter on the keyboard to convert it into a selection then invert the selection by going to select invert and then press delete on your keyboard to remove the background and that should do it for today's tutorial on removing backgrounds from your images using if you have any questions leave a comment below and as always thanks for watching you

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 615,280

Rating: 4.9438777 out of 5

Keywords: gimp tutorial, gimp remove background, gimp delete background to transparent, logos by nick, logosbynick, nick saporito

Id: lOzSiOIipSM

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020