I have a JPG element that has a white background and I want to remove all the white and turn it transparent and save it as a PNG. It there a quick way to do that? I'm not "super" savy with photoshop but I do know a bit and right now I was just trying to erase the white but dang it's taking me forever.
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You can use the magic eraser option. You go to where your eraser is, and left click and hold your click. You will then see three eraser options, choose the magic eraser tool. Once you choose that tool, you click on the white, and it should erase all of the white. However, if there is some parts that aren't quite white, you might have to go back and erase those by hand, with the regular eraser, for the best effect. If you use the magic eraser too much, you will not have smooth edges. I have included a picture here so that you can see where the tool I'm speaking about is, in case you don't know photoshop that well.
I hope this helps.
Take a look at this post and see if it helps..
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/forums/software-specific/photoshop-and-photoshop-elements/how-do-i
I always have trouble with the magic eraser or using the magic wand tool, because they always seem to take away part of the image when I use them and then I need to go back and correct that. Can anyone tell me how to stop that from happening? I know that changing the tolerance, etc. helps, but is there something I need to do so that it stops taking some of the image pixels away or does that just come with the territory?
Thanks guys for all the info. It's much easier than erasing pixles!
To Mary, I'm sure you have tried this, but you can check and uncheck contigious as well, to see if that works for you. If there was a certain part of the white area I wanted to delete, and others I wanted to keep, I would use the lasso tool to select that area, or the magnetic lasso is also good. Basically a lot of trial and error and practice is needed. If you had a specific image in mind, that I could work on for you, to do a video tutorial, I could do that if you provide me with the image, and tell me what you'd want deleted and what you'd want kept.
Marlene, Thanks for your comment. Yes, I have tried the check and uncheck contiguous, and the laso tool. Most of the time when I have an image that I need to clear out the background. I will increase the size to about 200 %, I will then use the magic eraser or the paint bucket, with the mode set to clear and get rid of the large areas of the background and then for the small areas I will use the eraser tool to clean out the areas. After that is done I will use the magic wand tool to select the area, then use the inverse and refine selection edge option to smooth out the edges. Is that the standard practice, or is there an easier way? Thanks for the offer to work on an image, but at this time I don't have a certain image in mind. I may take you up on that offer in the future.
Mary it seems like you know your stuff. haha. Well, sometimes when using an image, for example a picture I drew on white paper, I would change the layer overlay mode to multiply, which rids that layer of all the white, as long as it is over another layer. Sometimes that is the best option. It really is trial and error, there is no real one way, at least not that I know of. I'm mostly self taught with the newer versions of photoshop. I did a multimedia course in 2006, but things have changed so much since then! lol
There is no 'right way' of selecting and erasing backgrounds. Most selections require a combination of tools before you have your perfect selection. Depending on what kind of image you have, the tools you use are different every time. I learned a lot from watching the basix tutorials on psdtuts. This one explains different selection tools: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/selections/
I have found that the magic eraser is the way to go for me. I'm turning everything into useful elements now. Haha
While looking for a tutorial for a question of Karry's in the Software Specific forum, I found this cool video that introduces a technique I never thought of for getting rid of a white background - using Color Range to select. Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkz44T5dRE
That tutorial was very interesting, Violet. I will have to try that.
The Color Range trick also works with Paintshop Pro.
If the magic eraser is taking part of your element try changing the tolerance to a lower level until you get what you want .... don't be afraid to turn it down real low if you have a lot of light colour in the element itself ... if it still takes more than you want it to undo and try it a little lower etc until you get what you want
I don't know if you still need a easy way to get rid of the white background...I work with PSc6...that's how i do it.
Unlock your layer, then magic staff and the tolerance on 25.
Click on your white background...you see now the ''ants'' and then click on ''delete''.
Save as PNG
That's all.
Would it be much the same in Elements 11? (I'm on my tablet at the moment, so can't check.)
That i don't know?
As far as I know it should Robyn, but I never really worked at PSE
I work in elements 11 so anything I add will be what I do with that software .... Lenie ... what is a magic staff ... I've worked in CS4 and 5 but don't remember a magic staff
Susan, I think Lenie meant to say magic wand. Does that ring a bell?
O, yes, I don't know the word in english...thanks Melo
" I think Lenie meant to say magic wand" ..... doh, she hits her forehead with the heal of her hand ....lol .... I must have been really tired when I wrote that :)....sorry Lenie
I use an action by Media Militia that removes the white background. It's free and you can find it here:
http://mediamilitia.com/removing-a-white-background-with-photoshop-actions/
after running the action, just save your image as a .png but you may wish to check for stray pixels and holes (missing pixels) first.
Slightly different side. I just discovered using XnView (freeware)to change bulk PNG to JPEG. It changes many different formats and does editing. I know PNG is better quality but my digital photo frame only accepts Jpeg.