7 Ways To Remove a Background in GIMP

so you have an image where you want to remove the background and to transparency but you're not sure which tool is best for the job well today you're going to discover seven different ways to remove a background with and then once you've completed this tutorial you'll know which method is best for your photo hello my name is chris parker and i'm here to help you elevate your editing skills so if you're ready let's do it so option number seven is using the fuzzy select tool now this selection tool works best on images that have a range of similar colors that take up a large portion of the image so for this image we have dark blues to light blues and then yellows to oranges in the background so the fuzzy select tool is perfect for these types of images so when you grab your fuzzy select tool here all you have to do is click on the background and the color you click on will give an indication of similar colors to select so there we go i have a selection of similar colors based on the color i clicked on but it's not selecting the entire sky so what i need to do is i need to hold down my shift key and click on the background again to add additional colors to that selection but it's going to take quite a while doing it this way so what i recommend doing is coming into your tool options here clicking on draw mask and then you can click and drag down to increase the amount of colors that are going to be selected so what it's doing here is it's increasing or decreasing the threshold whether you go down or up and that's based on this slider right here so the lower the number the fewer similar colors that is going to select and the higher the threshold the more colors is going to select so if i click here again we can see it selected a lot more colors this time but it's also selecting the foreground as well so we want to make sure that we're starting with a low threshold and then using this method to click and drag down and that overlay is going to give you an indication when the foreground is being selected and then you can move it back up to lower that threshold to start with a larger selection this way then with your shift key held down continue clicking on the background to add additional colors to your selection so again it's only selecting similar colors based on that threshold that is currently set in the tool options and this may take several clicks in order to get everything selected and if you want to you can always increase that threshold a little bit more so that you can increase the amount of colors being selected but again it may end up selecting colors that you don't want in the foreground so this is a quick way to get started with the fuzzy select tool and then just use the shift key to continue selecting now what i can do is i can hit my delete key or my backspace key to delete the background the only problem is it's not transparent we have a solid color instead so what we need to do is we need to go up to our image layer here right click on it and add an alpha channel which will allow you to delete to a transparent background once i hit that delete key again we can see we have a transparent background this time and now you can change the sky with a new image if you want to alright option 6 for removing backgrounds in is to use the select by color selection tool it works very similar to fuzzy select but this time it's going to concentrate more on a specific color versus a range of similar colors so once i click on the background here it will then select all the white pixels that i clicked on again with the shift key i can click and add to the selection again you need to make sure that you're adding an alpha channel so you can remove the background to transparency now real quick i'm going to switch back to this image here and i'm going to undo all of this and i want to show you the difference between the select by color and fuzzy select tool so i have the threshold set the same as i did before once i click here you're going to notice that it's selecting colors in the foreground as well and not restricting it to this range right here and that's because with select by color it's choosing all the colors that you clicked on in the image whether it's the foreground or the background so you need to make sure you're using the right tool for the type of image that you're working on all right option number five for removing backgrounds and is using the paths tool so the pass tool is a little bit more of an advanced selection tool it's a little harder to use it's going to take some time and practice to get used to but it's great when you need precise selections so to use the pass tool first grab your pass tool from the toolbar here or press the letter b and then what you need to do is you need to click on the edge that separates your background and foreground so once i click right here i'm left with this anchor point and i can actually click on this anchor point and move it and reposition it if i need to then i can come down here click and drag my mouse as i'm holding down my left mouse button to bend that path that connects those two anchor points then i can continue creating my path around the subject as needed to complete the selection process i'm going to go ahead and complete this path and then i'll show you how to close it out now in order to close out the path to make a selection you first need to hold down your control key and then click on that first anchor point that you created and that will close the path now when i hit enter or return i will have my selection but at this point we have the subject selected not the background so we need to go up to select and click invert to invert the selection let's go ahead and add an alpha channel and then i can remove the background how cool is that all right option number four for removing backgrounds in is to use artificial intelligence yes we have a i and and it's used with a tool called scissors select now it's 10 times easier and 10 times faster to use than the paths tool if you ask me so what i'm going to do is i'm going to switch to this image and now imagine having to select this image here of the subject with the path tool with all these different curves it will take you forever or i'm going to go ahead and zoom in here what you can do is use the scissor select tool which is right here and just like with the path tool it is going to add an anchor as soon as you click on the edge of the foreground and the background but here is what is cool once i click down here it's going to automatically find the edge and apply a path along it without having to bend that path like we did with the pass tool so watch this here we go boom automatic how awesome is that i love it so i can continue making a selection of my subject here by going along the edge and clicking on it and then is going to auto magically find the edge for me now it's not 100 perfect like any selection tool so you may need to make adjustments just like we did with the pass tool so if you take a look right here it's selecting part of the subject's wrist as well so what i can do is hold down my shift key click and drag out and that's going to add another anchor point and it's going to make that fine perfect selection exactly where i want it now i can come down here and i can continue making my selection i'm going to hold down the shift key again and click here and it will continue making the selection based on where i add that anchor point so i'm going to go ahead and finish this up and i'll show you what you need to do next all right just like before with the pass tool we need to click on that first anchor point that we started but we don't need to hold down our control key this time all you have to do is just click on that one it will complete the path and then hit enter or return to make your selection now i do want to point out that the higher the quality image the better results you're going to get with this tool or any selection tool for that matter this is a low resolution file and the selection is not perfect because it is pixelated along the edge of our subject and the foreground and it's not able to detect exactly where the edge of the background and the subject meet up so just remember higher quality means better options for making selections or at least better results when it comes to making selections now just like before we're going to add an alpha channel and then we need to invert the selection to delete the background now i do need to make a selection inside of here i'm not going to do that because now you know how to use a i in all right option number three for removing backgrounds in is using an underutilized tool in because the tool is not available in the toolbar and it's one of my favorites so to find it you're gonna come down here there's a little teeny tiny icon right here when i hover over it it's going to say toggle quick mask on or off and the keyboard shortcut is shift plus q so once you click on that it's going to add a red mask overlay so anything in red is not selected so we need to remove the red mask in order to add to the selection so you're going to paint with black and white to add and remove so we're going to grab our paint brush tool here and to remove we want to use white so i'm going to switch the foreground color to white and then when i paint over an area it's showing the mask is being removed and that lets you know that is now part of the selection so again anything in red is not being selected so i like to start off with a large brush like this to cover a large portion of the subject and then i'll use a smaller brush to get in closer to the edges and to get the smaller parts like her arm here so i'm just using the scroll wheel on my mouse here to make it larger or smaller if your mouse is not set up to do that i do have a video in the description below that will tell you how to set that up so i'm going to go ahead and continue around the arm here and then what you want to do is you want to set your hardness of your brush to be right around 50. not too hard and not too soft if you need to depending on the photo you may need to go with a harder or softer edge brush so we can do that right here in the tool options by increasing or decreasing the hardness according to what you need to do for your selection so i'm going to switch to the zoom tool with the letter z so i can zoom in back to the paintbrush tool and then a smaller brush to go along the edge just like so i'm going to go ahead and finish this up and then i'll tell you what you need to do next now what you can do is you can hold down your spacebar key to get your hand tool and then you can navigate to another part of the image now the other thing you want to do or another thing you should know i should say is if you paint outside of your subject let's say i go over here and paint in here and i need to add this back to red so what i need to do is i need to switch my foreground color to black so i can paint with black and that's going to add the layer mask back you can also use the letter x on your keyboard to switch back and forth between black and white alright so once you're done doing that go ahead and hit shift plus q to get out of quick mask mode and then is going to apply a selection around your subject which means you need to go back up to select and click invert to select the background apply your alpha channel and then you can remove the background alright step two for removing backgrounds in is using another ai tool called the foreground select tool so you can go ahead and select that tool from here and it's a two-step process for using this tool the first thing you need to do is click and drag an outline around your subject like so it doesn't have to be perfect or along the edge of the bird because in step two we're going to further refine where the edge is between the foreground and the background to complete this you need to go back to where you started until you see this little yellow circle once you release you can hit enter or return to start phase two so we have two blue overlays one is darker than the other so we need to further refine our selection process or to give information to make that selection for us so what we're going to do is we're going to paint over our subject now and once i release my mouse button here it's going to go from white and it's going to show those pixels underneath without the overlay so basically what we're doing is we're giving pixel information colors contrast that sort of thing to tell okay these are the colors of the foreground and i want you to take that information and compare it to the background and then it's going to be able to determine where the edge is between the subject and the background so we're going to have to go with a smaller brush now to get in here a little bit tighter now just like before it doesn't have to be perfect but we want to get enough colors to give to make the determination of exactly where the edge is between the subject and the foreground alright so once you're done with that you can click on the preview mask here to see what type of results you're going to get or if you just want to try it out you can go ahead and hit the select button right here which i'm going to go ahead and do then is going to do its magic by formulating the algorithm that has been programmed to find the edge between the subject and the background and then we need to invert our selection again and we can go ahead and remove the background how awesome is that i love it alright so the number one option for removing your backgrounds in is not to use a selection tool by itself and deleting the pixels like we have been permanently instead i recommend hiding those pixels temporarily by using a pro editing technique that i'm going to share with you right now so i'm going to go back to this image and i'm going to show you what i mean by permanently deleting so i'm going to go ahead and delete this background again and if i continue editing my image and i realize maybe i selected her hand here and i deleted all those pixels well guess what if i continue editing from this point on and i don't realize it until i'm done well guess what i have to start all over so to avoid that we want to temporarily hide these pixels and to do that we're going to apply a layer mask so we're going to come down here to the bottom of our layers panel and click on this icon right here to add a layer mask and we want to make sure we have a selection selected since we're using a selection in conjunction with the layer mask and when you click add boom those pixels are gone but even better check this out if i set my foreground color to white i can then paint with white to add those pixels back and if i switch to black i can remove those pixels so the pixels are hidden temporarily how cool is that i love it now if you want to continue learning more about these selection tools because we only covered the basics check out this playlist right here to learn more about how you can use these selection tools to remove your background in

Channel: Parker Photographic

Views: 8,920

Keywords: gimp tutorial, gimp remove background, gimp remove background from image, gimp remove background to transparent, gimp remove background color from image, gimp remove background from image hair, gimp remove background color, gimp remove background make transparent, gimp remove background fuzzy select, gimp remove background color transparent, gimp remove background from photo, remove background gimp transparent, remove background gimp 2.10, remove background gimp mac, gimp

Id: hPZygFS90Pk

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021