Removing Background from image

[Todd123]

Hi, I've got Affinity Publisher (no other versions) and am trying to remove the white background from the attached file, so when I insert it you just see the compass rose. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this?

Thanks!

[RNKLN]

What you can try is select the compass image layer in the layers panel, click the Gear icon (Blend Ranges) just above and on the right, and make adjustments to the Source Layers Ranges as shown below … You can play with the handles to fine tune.

[Todd123]

Thanks! I have no idea what I did but it worked!

[markw]

Or, slightly less complicatedly, as the compass image is just black & white, set it’s layer blend mode in the Layers panel to Multiply and the white areas will disappear. 

[RNKLN]

Basically, you're suppressing the lighter colours. On the left is black, on the right is white. Everything else in between. When dragging the right handle down, you're suppressing white (it already does the job for 99%). The way you now have it creates a strict divide between dark Gray to black (left) and dark Gray to white (right).

[Alfred]

22 minutes ago, RNKLN said:

Basically, you're suppressing the lighter colours. On the left is black, on the right is white.

Additionally, at the top is fully opaque and at the bottom is fully transparent, so the graph is saying “keep black and dark grey opaque, but make lighter grey and white transparent”. Since there aren’t any greys in this particular case, you’re left with opaque black and transparent white.

[GarryP]

Fantastic, thanks RNKLN and Alfred, I just learned something new (or again, I can’t remember).
In my attached image, on the lower gradient-filled rectangle (which is a duplicate of the upper one), I’ve ‘cut off sharply’ the darker colours to the left while 'fading out' the lighter colours to the right.
I didn’t really understand what was going on until you explained it.
Cheers.