How To Make An Image Background Transparent (for Mac)

Crop and remove distracting backgrounds from your pictures. Select the picture that you want to remove the background from. Select Picture Format. If you don't see Remove Background, make sure you selected a picture.

If you have been around awhile, you know that I like to create my fair share of collages for different types of posts. I also like the look of layering images and having some of them overlap. It’s difficult to do this when the background color of an image isn’t transparent. Today I’m going to share how to make the background of a photo transparent on Mac computers. For some, you may have been using this photography design hack for years, for others, it might be a new technique you integrate into your graphics. Either way, I’m breaking it down for you today for transparent backgrounds in photos!

How To Make The Background Of A Photo Transparent On Mac

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Let’s start with the basics – why do you want a transparent background in photos? For me, I like to create collages. When the photo has a background color, it sticks out. Here’s an example:

Do you see the outline of the background on the yellow romper in the first photo? It distracts from the overall look of the collage, so that is what you want to get rid of.

How To Make The Background Of A Photo Transparent On Mac

The first step is opening the photo you want to edit in Preview. Usually Preview is the default app, so by double clicking on the image, it should automatically pop up in Preview.

Next, you will click the button on the far right side that looks like a Caboodle. That’s your toolbox. Click it! A whole toolbar will appear and it should look like the below photo.

Next, you will click the tool that looks like a magic wand. This is the enhancement tool.

From here, you will take your cursor and dragging it slightly toward the center of the page until the white space until it turns pink. As soon it turns pink, release your cursor. Your image should have moving dots all around it like this:

Hit the delete key on your keyboard and your new image should look like this:

Make sure to save your new image with the transparent background and you’re all set!

Giving photos a transparent background is great for creating photo collages, making homemade paper dolls, crafts and so much more. I hope this photo tutorial was helpful for you.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like How To Turn A Cloudy Sky Blue or 3 Easy Hacks For Lightroom Beginners!

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Preview User Guide

You can extract part of an image. For example, you can extract one person’s face from a group photo and then paste the face elsewhere.

If an image’s background consists of areas that are mainly the same color, you can also remove the background.

Extract an image

  1. In the Preview app on your Mac, if the Markup toolbar isn’t showing, click the Show Markup Toolbar button , click the Selection Tools menu , then select the Smart Lasso tool .

  2. Trace the edge of the image you want to extract.

    Make sure the image’s edge is within the thick border that appears as you trace.

  3. Connect the end of the border back to its beginning, or stop dragging to connect the border in a straight line back to the beginning.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • To copy the image so that you can paste it in a document, choose Edit > Copy.

    • To remove everything outside of your selection, click Crop or choose Edit > Invert Selection, then press Delete.

Extract a PDF page as an image

You can select part of an image opened in Preview, then copy and paste it elsewhere or crop the content surrounding it. If the image is in a PDF, you need to extract the PDF page as an image before you can use the image markup tools.

  1. In the Preview app on your Mac, open the PDF file, choose View > Thumbnails, then select the page in the thumbnail sidebar.

  2. Click File > Export, type a name, add a tag (optional), then choose where you want to save it.

  3. Click the Format pop-up menu and choose an image format (such as PNG).

  4. Click Save.

Remove the background from an image

  1. Downliad movie ao no exorcist movie sub indo. In the Preview app on your Mac, if the Markup toolbar isn’t showing, click the Show Markup Toolbar button , then click the Instant Alpha button (or use the Touch Bar). Download contoh skripsi teknik sipil.

  2. Drag over part of the background.

    Preview selects the area you dragged over and any pixels adjacent to it that have the same colors.

  3. To delete the selected area, press Delete.

    To delete everything outside the selected area, choose Edit > Invert Selection, then press Delete.

  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have the image you want.

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