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Removing white background from photos


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Hi, Ive taken photo of an object against a white background, now i want to select the white background and erase it so I'm just left with the object to i can drop it onto a different background. I can't seem to work out how to select the white space though.

 

Thanks, Rob

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Hi rob kay, 

I have removed my previous answer because it didn't provide more info than the tutorial on Vimeo.

There may be easier ways to accomplish that, depending on the complexity of the photo/object and the background itself (if it's solid white or variations of it). A sample image would help us see what you're after.

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  • 2 years later...

Hello, I am new to AP the & I am finding that if you are not savvy to the terminology it easily becomes major frustration.  

I found out how to made a color selection "Select Sampled Color" I have tried to remove/delete the background via a layer mask and nothing happens. I finally found the layers panel & I can see it there is a mask but it is not showing as a transparency. I tried inverting the selection. What am I doing incorrectly?

 

I would love to find directions for simply creating an image on a transparent background.  Instead I must search a number of directions ending up more confused.

 

When I go to HELP the directions I seem to be getting lost in the workspace nuances & terminology. The directions I read do not make it clear to me exactly what panels, menus, tools or personas workspace I need.  unfortunately there was no image to help orient myself to be sure I was where I was supposed to be.  Then I go back to HELP to the workspace section and try to orient myself switch back & forth getting even more confused. 

In this case all I want to do is remove a white background with a floral image making it a transparency.   This should be fairly easy but it is not working for me today.  I did it in CS6 & I have abandoned Adobe to force myself to learn AP.  I am struggling. I have searched help but there seems to be limitations of  terms in the parameters of a search so if I do not have the correct terminology I am not getting access to the info.  I just want to make a transparency of a floral pattern that is on a white background. 

 

It might be wise to broaden the HELP search "terms" parameters to include basic novice terms like "remove/delete background" "color selection" "make an image with a transparent background".  Sorry for being inept at this...

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Hello, I am new to AP the & I am finding that if you are not savvy to the terminology it easily becomes major frustration.  

I found out how to made a color selection "Select Sampled Color" I have tried to remove/delete the background via a layer mask and nothing happens. I finally found the layers panel & I can see it there is a mask but it is not showing as a transparency. I tried inverting the selection. What am I doing incorrectly?

 

There are several ways.

 

 

If the background is white, you can go Filters > Colours > Erase White Paper. Best for black bitmap logos on a white background

 

If you select from sampled colours and are happy with what you have selected, the first option is to invert the selection Select > Invert Pixel Selection so you have everything selected but the bit you want and press the delete key. You will be left with just the selection you made.

 

If you make a selection and click on the little mask icon in layers, or go Layer > New Mask Layer that will make a mask for you

 

Second option, once you have made your selection, you can duplicate the layer Layer > Duplicate or (Ctrl J) and that will just put your selection (and only your selection) onto a new layer. Everything else on that layer will be transparent and the original layer is untouched. Hide the original layer (tick on the right) so you can tell or you will think nothing has happened.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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Thanx, toltec‼️

I tried it and I did not have to invert‼️ Actually, I did invert and it took the image away so undo a few times to get back to the original color selectionand was able to delete the background.

Your second option was not working until I went back to filters and erase white paper‼️ DAH‼️‼️

 

Selecting white was so exact it missed the jpg artifacts so now I am trying to figure out how to refine the color range with selected sampled colors  I tried holding the shift key to increase the color range but it did not work.

Sigh... getting there!

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once you have made your selection, you can duplicate the layer Layer > Duplicate or (Ctrl J)

 

Ctrl+J on Windows, but Cmd+J (⌘J) on a Mac. ;)

 

... and that will just put your selection (and only your selection) onto a new layer

 

Please note that in order for this to work you must have a Pixel layer selected, otherwise the entire layer will be duplicated (because it will be treated as a single object). If the selected layer is shown as '(Image)' in the Layers panel, you need to right-click it and choose 'Rasterize...' from the context menu to convert its designation to '(Pixel)'.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Thanx Alfred! Yes, I am very familiar with short cuts. Wonder why I could not use ⌘D to deselect. I cannot make the marching ants go away.

As far as the selection I had the image selected.  It says "pixel" in the layers panel. I did not have actively identify a pixel layer & I  did not find anywhere to activate that feature. 

Everything did work as soon as I erase white paper.  

 

If the background were a color like blue or pink, how do I erase it?  Use delete? I am used to making a layer mask in CS6 then use the brush tool to remove (black) or add back (white) the background.  How do I do that in AP⁉  I have not figured that one out yet. I make very precise selections in my photos so it would help to master that masking quickly.

 

Now for the next step adding a drop shadow‼    

 

I just downloaded Affinity Designer last week and I have not used it since I am still mastering some basics in AP 

 

I love learning I am just a little slow due to the differences in terms and workspace... I am getting better.  It all looks so easy in videos but actually doing it takes time to be make it automatic vs step by step.  It sure slows down the pace! Giggles ... guess I am slow at my age anyway‼

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I am used to making a layer mask in CS6 then use the brush tool to remove (black) or add back (white) the background.  How do I do that in AP⁉

 

As 'toltec' said:

 

If you make a selection and click on the little mask icon in layers, or go Layer > New Mask Layer that will make a mask for you

 

Edit: I meant to answer this question at the same time:

 

Now for the next step adding a drop shadow‼

 

Go to the Effects panel, expand the Outer Shadow section and press the 'Offset Tool' button. Drag on the canvas to create the shadow and adjust it visually, or use the Offset controls to adjust it numerically.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Here is an example. Not necessarily the best method but it will show how masks and layers relate.

 

There is only one layer to start (a pixel layer) called Background. "Penguins1"

 

I selected Mrs Penguin (rather crudely) using the selection brush tool. "Penguins2"

 

I then went Layers > New Mask Layer and instantly divorced Mr Penguin. "Penguins3"

 

This is what I ended up with in Layers. "Penguinlayers"

 

I can now add a new background. "Penguins4"

 

 

Note, I had to nest the mask layer into the background layer for this to work. Drag it on to the background icon. If it isn't nested, the mask masks the bottom fill layer as well, so you cant see the fill !!!

 

Ending up with "finallayers" showing the mask nested into background.

post-59234-0-45888400-1498074952_thumb.jpg

post-59234-0-54700500-1498074959_thumb.jpg

post-59234-0-20633700-1498074968_thumb.jpg

post-59234-0-39218000-1498074980_thumb.jpg

post-59234-0-78167700-1498074988_thumb.jpg

post-59234-0-56252300-1498075258_thumb.jpg

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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  • 1 year later...
On 6/21/2017 at 7:32 PM, toltec said:

There are several ways.

 

 

If the background is white, you can go Filters > Colours > Erase White Paper. Best for black bitmap logos on a white background

 

If you select from sampled colours and are happy with what you have selected, the first option is to invert the selection Select > Invert Pixel Selection so you have everything selected but the bit you want and press the delete key. You will be left with just the selection you made.

 

If you make a selection and click on the little mask icon in layers, or go Layer > New Mask Layer that will make a mask for you

 

Second option, once you have made your selection, you can duplicate the layer Layer > Duplicate or (Ctrl J) and that will just put your selection (and only your selection) onto a new layer. Everything else on that layer will be transparent and the original layer is untouched. Hide the original layer (tick on the right) so you can tell or you will think nothing has happened.

Thank you very much for your short text description. As nice as all the "tutorial" videos are, I don't need a 20 minutes video on how to do three clicks. (numbers raised for the purpose of making things clear)

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  • 1 year later...

as long as the selection tools are  kinda useless (imho) as long as there's no anti aliasing  for  anything but  lasso, all the possibilities including  selection tools  do not  rly  produce  good results... hoped there was  something like erase white  paper just  for colors one  can pick... I mean black especially  would  be great to have.. I'm using it a lot in conjunction with 3D software and there I have more images with black  being transparent,  not white  :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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  • 4 months later...

In other tools I use a magic wand and just select the background colour, and then delete my whole selection, but in affinity this deletes everything but white, even when I invert the selection, it still deletes everything but white

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Hi Samwow,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
You're probably working with an Image layer (check the label between parenthesis after the layer's name in the Layers panel). Image layers work as a kind of container for the original image data. You can edit/transformthem non-destructively through live adjustments/live filters, mask etc but you can't edit them at a pixel level as you can with regular pixel layers. To convert them to pixel layer, right click the Image layer in the Layers panel and select Rasterise. You can then manipulate them at a pixel level, selecting and deleting the parts you want. See this video tutorial for more info about image layers versus pixel layers in Affinity.

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