If you want to learn how to remove a background in Photoshop, you’re in the right place. In this tutorial, I will share with you how to remove the background from an image. You can easily cut out an object from a photo, and use it elsewhere place or give it another background image.
Removing the background from a photo can be a really hard, if the subject you want to cut out has lots of hair, or if the background is exceedingly complex. Here, I will show you the method of removing a background from an image using Photoshop to help you overcome that challenge.
Photoshop has many different ways to remove the background from an image. For simple background, you can use the Magic Wand Tool or the Quick Selection tool. For more complicated backgrounds, you might need to use the Background Eraser tool.
How to Remove Background in Photoshop Using Different Tools
I will explain our work on this image of a cat, where we want to remove the white background.
Remove Background Using the Magic Wand Tool
Open the photo from your computer: click on File >> Open (in the top left corner), then select your image from your device or directly drag and drop your image.
Now, select the Magic Wand (click with mouse right button) in the toolbar on the left (See from below screenshot). Objection and Quick Selection tools are hidden under the same button.
Now, click on the remove background color area to select it. It can select an area with similar colors (white in our case). Try changing the Tolerance and Contiguous in the top menu.
The properly selected white background will look like this:
- Remove selected area:
To remove a selected area, go to Edit >> Cut/Clear (at the top menu), or press Delete key on your keyboard.
After deleting the selected background color, you will see white and grey squares, which means the area is empty.
After removing the background, save the image as PNG (File >> Export as PNG, and press the “Save” button. PNG is necessary, because JPG does not support transparent pixels.
Open Photoshop.
Select the Quick Selection (click with mouse right button) in the toolbar on the left (See from below screenshot) and hold.
Now, click on the Quick Selection tool and then drag it around the part of the image that you want to keep. In this case, we want to select the cat.
Cut selected area: To cut a selected area, go to Edit >> Cut (at the top menu), or press Ctrl + X from the keyboard.
Now, open the new background image that you want to use.
Paste the copy of the cat into the new background image.
Open Photoshop.
Select the Background Eraser (click with mouse right button) in the toolbar on the left (See from below screenshot) and hold.
When you select the Background Eraser, your mouse cursor will change into a circle.
Background Eraser Tool is a brush, and just like Photoshop’s other Brush tools, you can adjust its size directly from your keyboard. Use the left square bracket key [ to make it smaller and the square bracket key ] to make it larger. Also, you can change this brush tool size with click mouse right button. When you click the mouse button, Photoshop deletes all of the matching color pixels that fall within the circle.
Now, select background color from Sampling. You can use the Tolerance and Contiguous in the top menu.
Note: a lower tolerance means the eraser will pick up on fewer color variations. While a higher tolerance expands the range of colors your eraser will select.
Now, drag Background Eraser brush tool around the part of the image. Then the background image will be removed.
Add new background image: File >> Open & Place.. and place the background image in the right position, then the save.
