remove background Archives - TrickyPhotoshop

This is how you change the background in Photoshop

I get a lot of requests to change the background in Photoshop when people approach to hire me. I tell them that I can do it in $10 and they just need to send me the photos. So, after receiving overwhelming number of requests, I decided to write a tutorial by myself on how to change the background in Photoshop.

Difficulty: Moderate
Time required for a first time doer: 15-20 mins (for a beginner)
Total steps: 4
Tools used: Magic Wand Tool, Camera RAW filter, Color Balance Adjustment layer, and Select and Mask

This is going to be a big tutorial. If you want, you can hire me to change the background to you. I can do it in $9.99. Just mail me the photos at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

Before we proceed, I want to show you the before and after.

Before

After

Thanks Pexels for these beautiful photos.

Step 1: Finding the correct background

The first thing that you need to do is to find the correct and beautiful background. There are many sites where you can find beautiful backgrounds.

Some of them are

You don’t need to even sign to download the free photos.

Step 2: Make a selection in Photoshop

Open your photo in Photoshop.

Grab the Quick Selection Tool from the tool panel.

Click on “Select Subject”. Photoshop will used its artificial intelligence to select the most important subject in the photo. In this case, the most important subject will be the photo of you.

See how beautifully Photoshop has selected the person in my photo.

If you can’t fingure out how to do it, I can do it in $9.99. Just mail me the photos at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

Step 2: Refine the selection

The selection is not perfect. Take a look next to her hair. It’s not properly selected. We’re going to fix that.

Go to Select > Select and Mask.

Grab the Refine Edge brush from the tool panel.

Keep the center of the brush on the hair and perimeter outside the hair. Brush on the hair. See the below GIF.

Here’s my version.

Check the right panel. Most of the sliders here are not required. But, if you want then you can copy these. Change “Output To” to New Layer with Layer Mask. Press OK.

This is how your photo would look.

We’re now again going to select the photo. Hold down Cmd/Ctrl and click on the layer mask.

This will select you. Copy yourself by pressing Cmd + C / Ctrl + C.

If you can’t fingure out how to do it, I can do it in $9.99. Just mail me the photos at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

Step 3: Put the person on a new background

Open the background.

Paste yourself by pressing Cmd + V / Ctrl + V. Photoshop will paste the photo at the center but the photo won’t be aligned.

We’re going to align the photo using the Free Transfrom tool. Grab these handle bars and align the photo. Press Return/Enter when done.

This is how my photo looks now.

If you can’t fingure out how to do it, I can do it in $9.99. Just mail me the photos at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

Step 4: Fix the colors for better blending

The backgorund is kind of reddish when compared to the girl. Also, the background is a bit dim also.

We’re going to fix it.

First fix the redness.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance

Change the Tone to Shadow and turn on Clipping Mask.

Increase the redness to 10.

Change the Tone to Midtones and increase the red to 9.

Change the Tone to Highlights and increase the Red to 6.

Time to fix the lightness.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels

Decrease the Outpul level to 245 and turn on the Clipping Mask.

This is how the photo would look now.

If you can’t fingure out how to do it, I can do it in $9.99. Just mail me the photos at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

How to remove background in Photoshop

You have a headshot or a product photo and you badly want to remove the background of that photo. But the problem is that you don’t know how to remove the background. This is why I am writing this tutorial on how to remove background in Photoshop.

I am going to show you three ways to remove a photo. The ways ordered based on their difficulty level. I am going to write the easiest one first.

The easiest one is to use Microsoft Word and the next two involves Photoshop. Out of the two Photoshop methods, one is very easy and takes a couple of seconds.

Video

Here’s the video for you if you prefer videos.

1. Remove the background of a photo using Microsoft Word

Before we go ahead, let me tell you that Microsoft Word does not remove the background as good as Photoshop. If your photo has a simple background then you can use Microsoft Word.

Pros:

Super duper easy to use
No need to have any knowledge of image editing
Easily accessible to everyone

Cons:

Does not remove the background completely. Leaves some traces
The output file is scaled down. Suppose you want to remove the background of a photo that you shot with a 12MP camera, the output would be like a photo that is shot with 1.2 – 2 MP camera.

If you don’t want the output to be of smaller in size, you can hire me to remove the background for you.I’ll do it in Photoshop which does not scale down the image. The min cost is $4 per image and the max cost is $10 per image. Send me the image at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

Before

After

Step 1: Open the image in Microsoft Word

Open the image in Microsoft Word to remove the background.

Open Microsoft Word. Go to Insert > Image > Picture from file. The user interface for Windows would be a little different.

Step 2: Remove background of the photo in Microsoft Word

Go to the Picture tab. Click on the Remove Background button. It is there at the top left.

Step 3: Finetune the removal

In case Word has removed some of the wanted areas then you can fix that. In the next window, click on the “Mark Area to Keep”. Draw a rough line and Word will keep that.

If you think that Word has included some of the unwanted areas then you can remove that using “Mark Area to Remove”.

Once done, right click on the photo and click on “Save as picture”.

That’s all.

Tried yourself and didn’t like the output? You can hire me to remove the background for you. The min cost is $4 per image and the max cost is $10 per image. Send me the image at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

2. Remove background in Photoshop using Select Subject

Time to use Photoshop.

Pros:

Super duper easy to use
Does not reduce the size and quality of the photo
Leaves no traces of Photoshop
Edits the image professionally

Cons:

Not free
Not the majority of people are familiar with Photoshop

Before

After

Open the image in Photoshop.

Step 1: Select the Subject

Select Subject feature is available only in the versions that launched in 2018 and after. Go to Select > Subject.

Photoshop will use artificial intelligence to automatically select the subject. The subject is the main focus of the image. Here the man is the subject.

Step 2: Use Select and Mask to Refine the Selection

Time to refine the selection. We’re going to use Select and Mask for this. This option was added in 2017. If you have older versions then you can use Refine Edge. Go to Select > Select and Mask.

Increase the radius to 250px and turn on Smart Radius. This will do your job.

Here’s the final photo.

Feeling frustrated? If you’re having some problem and feeling frustrated, you can hand over this task to me. The max-to-max cost is $10 per image. Contact me at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

2. Remove background in Photoshop using the Quick Selection Tool

Time to use another method Photoshop.

Pros:

Easy to use but not as easy as Select Subject
Does not reduce the size and quality of the photo
Leaves no traces of Photoshop
Edits the image professionally

Cons:

Not free
Not the majority of people are familiar with Photoshop

Before

After

Open the image in Photoshop

Step 1: Select the person with the Quick Selection Tool

Grab the Quick Selection Tool from the tool panel or press Shift + W again and again until it comes.

Now drag the mouse over the image of the subject. Quick Selection Tool will automatically select the subject. See the GIF below.

This will select the subject.

Step 2: Use Select and Mask to Refine the Selection

We’re going to do the same that we did in the previous method.

Increase the radius to 250px and turn on Smart Radius. This will do your job.

Here’s the final photo.

Feeling frustrated? If you’re having some problem and feeling frustrated, you can hand over this task to me. The max-to-max cost is $10 per image. Contact me at hello@tricky-photoshop.com.

remove background select and mask select subject

How to Remove Logo Background in Photoshop

I know that I am not consistent since the past few months in terms of posting fresh tutorials. I have received so many complaints from you that I should be more consistent. I hear you and love you ❤️. I promise that I’ll be consistent again starting from today. 😊

Today, I am going to show you how to remove the background in a logo in Photoshop. Of course, there are some mobile apps out there. Some of them are good at removing backgrounds and others claim that they can remove the background as good as Photoshop can. To be completely honest, I have not tried all of them. I have tried a few and they were good. But, they were one-touch removal. They did not give me any flexibility, like Photoshop.

OK, other talks apart. Let’s get to the main topic. Today, I am going to remove the background from three different logos with three different methods. This is because I’ve heard that I should be editing multiple images in a tutorial so that I can cover as many aspects as I can.

Method 1 – Remove background using “Color Range” command

Let’s start with the YouTube logo.

1.a Select the Background using Color Range command

The logo has a big white background. Let’s remove that.

With the help of Color Range command, we can select a single color from the entire image. We’re going to select the white color as our background is of white color.

Go to Select > Color Range.

In the Color Range dialogue box, click on the “Add to sample” icon first. It is highlighted with the “1” in the below screenshot. I’ll tell you why did we do it two paragraphs below.

Now, click on the color you want to remove. I am going to click on white because I want to remove white color.

The reason we clicked on “Add To Sample” because it tells Photoshop to include multiple colors. Many times, the background is not completely white, agree? It consists of multiple colors like gray, offwhite, white, etc. With this button clicked, whichever color we click on will get selected. If this option is off, Photoshop will only select the latest clicked color.

For example, let’s say we click on the red color and then the green color. If “Add to sample” is on then Photoshop will select both red and green color. If it’s off then Photoshop will only select the color that we clicked at the last and deselect the previously selected color. In our case, it’ll deselect the red color and then select the green color.

Press OK. See how beautifully Photoshop has selected the white color. You can see the dashed outline across the YouTube logo.

1.b Invert the Selection

Invert the selection because we need to select the logo. Right now, our white color is selected which we want to remove. Press Cmd + Shift + I / Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection. Now, our logo will be selected.

1.c Refine the Selection

Time to refine the selection. We’re going to use Select and Mask. This tool is a replacement of Refine Edge tool. I had previously written a tutorial on Select and Mask tool in Photoshop. Check that tutorial if you want to know more on this powerful tool.

I like to keep the smart radius off and keep the radius to 0 pixels. You can play with these sliders.

Once done, press OK.

1.d Trim the Image to Remove Unnecessary Space

We’re going to remove the unnecessary space. The easiest method is to use the Photoshop Trim command. You can also use Crop tool but this command is much faster.

Choose “Transparent Pixels” and select all of the four options in the “Trim Away” area. Press OK.

Here you go.

1.e Save the Image in PNG or GIF

While saving the logo, make sure that you save it in PNG or GIF. JPEG does not support transparent background and automatically adds a white background upon saving.

Method 2 – Remove background using Quick Selection Tool

Time to remove the background using the Quick Selection Tool. This time we’re going to use a different logo.

2.a Grab the Quick Selection tool and select the logo

Grab the Quick Selection tool from the tool panel or press Shift + W again and again until it activates.

Make your option panel like the one shown below.

2.b Select the background

Click on the background and drag the mouse. Photoshop will keep on selecting the background until you release the mouse button.

Once the outer background is selected, I am going to select the internal hole the same way.

Here’s the selected logo.

Now, you can follow the steps from 1.b till 1.e. I thought of writing the steps again but that would be this tutorial unnecessarily big.

Here’s the logo.

Method 3 – Remove background using Magic Wand Tool

Time to remove the background using the Magic Wand Tool. This time we’re going to use a different logo.

2.a Grab the Magic Wand tool and select the logo

Grab the Magic Wand tool from the tool panel or press Shift + W again and again until it activates.

Make your option panel like the one shown below. You may want to change the Tolerance value once you become an intermediate user, 15 is OK for a beginner level user.

2.b Select the background using the Magic Wand tool

Now, start clicking on the background. You don’t need to drag the mouse this time. Just a single click would be enough.

Magic wand tool selects all the colors that are similar to each other and are adjacent. For example, in this below image, the background is of light gray. So, if I click on the background that is present outside the ring, it’ll select only that background. It’ll not select the background that is present inside the ring.

I am going to click on all the background now. This includes the background inside the ring.