Removing Backgrounds from Images & Photographs
So you find a great photo of a friend or maybe a game render and you want to get rid of that background that is behind them. It could be someone’s messy room to a game enviroment in a render. They’re really annoying when you just want to use the picture in your own graphics. I wrote this tutorial in hopes that it will simplify your life a little more when you need to remove the background of images or photographs.
Now this is a way I’ve taught myself. I’m not claiming this is the right way to do it, but really all that matters in the end is the right thing is accomplished in the end. There may be an easier way to do this and I don’t know about it, but it’s up to you if you choose to follow my technique rather than a different technique.
I’ve chosen a Guild Wars wallpaper to use in this tutorial. My goal is to get rid of the background in the wallpaper and leave the ranger (female) in tact. We’re going to do this with the pen tool. Yes, that tool that no one knows how to use and they usually leave it untouched.
Before we begin I want you to erase everything in your mind that has been said about the pen tool negatively and all the fears you have of the tool as the tool is actually very easy to use once you learn how to use it.
Grab the trusty pen tool. You can find this tool in the tool box window in the left column near the end of most of the tools. See screenshot.
We’re going to do a rough outline of what we want to keep in the image. So start clicking on the outline of the ranger (female) in the wallpaper. Start at the top and go towards the bottom by clicking around her outline. Once you get to the bottom click all the way to the right of the image and then click in the upper right corner and then back to your starting point. This will create a “box.” See screenshot.
Now when we zoom into this you’ll notice how sloppy it is (See screenshot below; you’ll see arrows showing you the sloppyness). We’re going to fix this next but just don’t worry about how sloppy it is when you do this step. Also, you’ll notice that the pen tool has created a green transparent layer over my image. This is just what I used so you can see what I was doing. It’s green because I set the color to green and it’s transparent because I set the layers opacity pretty low.
Now to make these lines more curved to fit the ranger (female) we’re going to use the Convert Point Tool. This tool will allow you to change the way the line is shaped. Basically, to use this tool you select it (See screenshot) then click on the green part or whatever color you used and some boxes will appear on the outline you made. These are called your Anchor Points…at least that’s what I think they’re called blum.gif. I’m getting ahead of myself anyway.. Take a look at the tutorial to select the tool and I’ll continue.
Click the color you used that is over the ranger (female) so you can see the boxes (anchor points) and click and hold, then start dragging on one to start converting the points. Drag it and mov eit around untill the line fits nicely on the ranger (female). See screenshot.
Once you’ve converted all the anchor points, you should have everything fitting nicely around the ranger (female). See screenshot.
Now all that is left to do is rasterize your layer that the pen tool created and ctrl + click on the thumnail preview to select the shape you made with the pen tool. Right click the new selection and click on “Select Inverse”, go to your original layer and hit the delete key… Delete the pen tool layer and there you have it. A wonderful non-background image.
