How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Did you land here by searching the term “make transparent background on photoshop”?

If you did, you’re in luck because this blog post is going to show you exactly how to do that

Obviously the main focus here is going to be around how to achieve a transparent background using photoshop but I’m also going to cover another nifty software that’s available on the market that (in some cases) can be much faster than photoshop depending on the subject in your image

I’ll explain more later but for now, let's just focus on how we can do this in Photoshop

Side note: My name is Thomas & I’ll be using Adobe Photoshop 2022 for this tutorial so if you’re running on an older version and things look a little different, that will be why

To update your version of Photoshop, click here to checkout Adobe’s Website

Ok, let’s get to step one, getting the right image!

Download 7 Day Trial of Adobe Photoshop

Getting The Right Image

Video 1 Transcript

Hello there, internet friend. My name's Thomas and you are watching Software Junky, that is my YouTube channel here on YouTube where you're probably watching this video, or you might be watching this video on my website.

So my website is actually metajunkie.ai. Long story short, my old internet alias was Thomas in Action. And I've now just started doing software tutorials on YouTube instead, because I have been working with software for years and years and years. And it's something that I think people do need help with.

So, going into what this video today is about, I'm gonna be showing you how to remove the background, or make background transparent in Photoshop.

So I've been using Uber suggest to do some keyword research, just to find out what people are looking for. And this seems to be something that comes up quite a lot. And I thought, "Well, I do know how to use Photoshop, so why don't I make a contribution to the internet and show people how to do that?"

So that's how you've landed on this video today. And this will actually be a four part series. So I'm gonna take you through the three steps that I use to do it in Photoshop. And I'm also gonna show you a bonus tool that I also use for other work that can get the job done just like Photoshop, but it's not actually in Photoshop.

So if you did type in, how to make transparent background on Photoshop into Google, and this has come up, this video will help you do that. And without further ado, let's get into it.

So this whole tutorial, actually, is gonna be based on a blog post that I've actually made over on metajunkie.ai which I'm gonna transfer into Software Junky eventually. So the blog post is actually already live, and you can come and check this by clicking the link in the description.

However, I thought I would actually use the blog post in this video because, for step one, which is getting the right image, it's a really good visual for me to show. So when it comes to making the background transparent on any photo, there's a few things with your image that you can do before you get into Photoshop to give yourself the best chance of success with it, okay?

So number one, is to make sure that your background is as plain and smooth as possible. You can see here in the demo, we've got a tick on this one 'cause it's a nice, flat, smooth blue colour.

And in this one, we've got a funky shirt that I own, that I've put in the background. And as you can see, there's patterns all over the shirt, there's similar colours to the subject on the shirt.

And the reason that this is an issue, when your background isn't smooth, or easily identifiable from the subject, photo editing softwares like Photoshop or Canva, or anything like that, can confuse parts of the background with the subject.

So when it comes time to removing your subject from the background, it can actually take bits of the background with it, which is pretty much just gonna add more manual labour for you in the end.

And it's something that you wanna avoid. So if from the outside, you can put your object on a smooth background, that's gonna be the best thing for you to do, okay? The background that I'm actually using in this scenario, so the actual one on the left here, is my backdrop that I got from The Backdrop Collective.

So these guys are really, they offer really, really nice backdrops for product images and stuff like that. You don't have to get this, they are pretty pricey, like $64 for a sheet of vinyl is pretty insane if you ask me.

It definitely wouldn't cost them that much to create that thing, but they do work really well, okay. Alternatively, you could use something like a jumper. So, this is a hoodie of mine, with I think, it's a very fine polyester material. It's smooth, it's similar colour to my backdrop, and something like that would work just fine because yeah, there's no patterns, no lines, it's just a smooth texture.

So yeah, smooth background is tip number one. Next, you'll wanna make sure that the colour of your backdrop is significantly different. So judging by this example here, see how the background, this was another, that's another background that I've got from Backdrop Collective. It's like the dusty pink one. See how the background is very similar coloured to the subject.

It's almost like they're the same colour. And again, they can also confuse the software into thinking that the background is part of the subject. So when you do your cut out, you know, parts of your background can be put into it because the software thought that, you know, they were together. In this case we've got pink and we've got blue. It's very easy for the software to figure out what's what in the image.

The other thing you need to take into account too, is your lighting. So, it just needs to be even and clear. You also don't need a fancy setup for this. In my demonstration image right here, this was just taken with natural sunlight.

It came out very even, you can see the subject beautifully. And the one on the right here, this is when I pulled my blinds down and limited the amount of light that was available. And as you can see, it's quite pixelated, it's not very easy to see.

And if you were to do a cutout of this one? It wouldn't look as nice as what this, you know, light one would look. So, lighting does really matter, but you, again, you don't need a fancy setup. Afternoon sun is perfect. Just make sure the subject is easier to see and the image quality isn't pixelated. And the last tip, in terms of getting the right photo, is just your angling, okay?

So you can see here, I've taken an angle from above, and I've taken an angle from straight on. And the problem with having your angle too high up or too low, is sometimes it can really distort the subject. And when you cut it out, it becomes 10 times more noticeable. See our first example here, you can see the Ditto is sitting there nice on the backdrop, and when we cut him out, he looks perfect. And then this one with the angle, it just looks a bit funny when you cut it out. So yeah.

Oh, and also if you're wondering why I'm using a Ditto, like a Pokemon, for any of your Pokemon fans out there? This is actually a candle that I made. So, I also have a little side business called https://www.sanlucar.com.au, and we make custom made candles.

And this is actually one of my custom designs. So I got a 3D print, I printed it out in my 3D printer, I poured silicon on top of it and made the mould. And then we poured wax in it. And he's a little candle now, so you can light him. And I thought, just because of how he looks, he's very cool.

I have to take photos of our candles all the time, so I thought, why not use my brand new candle mould? Why not? So yeah, that's why we're using this today. So yeah, those are my four tips for getting a good image. If you leave this video and go and follow all of those steps, you should have a really nice image to work with.

And it's gonna give you the best chances of getting a really nice, smooth cutout by the end of this. In the next video, I'm gonna go over how to actually remove your subject from the background in Photoshop. It's pretty damn easy. I mean, when I was writing out this blog post, there was a lot more involved.

But I think when you actually explain it in tutorial version, it is quite easy. So in the next video, we are gonna get into Photoshop and I'll show you exactly how to do that, okay? I'll see you then. Bye.

Also, if you're watching this video at a time that's not convenient to go and get a new photo, I have also left a link in the description to my demo image of Ditto, the Ditto candle.

So if you wanna download it you can go to the link in the description and you can practise the method that I'm doing in these videos on the exact same subject that I'm using. A link to that will be on the screen right now, or it'll be up in the card, so I'll see you there. Bye.

Now, before we even think about getting into Photoshop we need to make sure we’ve got a suitable image that’s going to give us a really nice clean finish.

Below is a list of the most important things to consider in order to make removing your image background a success:

1. Make sure your background is plain and as smooth as possible.

Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Smooth Back ground

If your background has lines or patterns they can sometimes get mistaken by photo editing softwares as part of the subject which ultimately just makes more work for yourself in the end.

Side note: You don’t need anything fancy either... For this demo I used my vinyl backdrop that I purchased from The Backdrop Collective, however, using a piece of clothing or a sheet can be just as effective.

Backdrop Materials - Transparent Background in Photoshop

2. Make sure that the colour of your background is different from your subject.

Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Background colour

Just like with lines and patterns, if your subject and background are too similar in colour, it's likely that Photoshop will have a hard time differentiating the two when it comes time seperate them.

3. Your lighting needs to be even and clear.

How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - LIGHTING TIPS

You don’t need a fancy set up to achieve this either. My demonstration image was taken with natural afternoon sunlight.

The most important thing is that the subject is well exposed, easy to see and that the image quality isn’t too pixelated.

If you can manage those 2 things, you’re set!

4. You may also want to get a few images from different angles.

Best Angles to Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Sometimes if your angles are too high or too low it can distort the subject a bit which becomes REALLY noticeable when you remove the background.

Once you’ve got your images ready to go, it’s now time to select and refine our subject to remove it from our background.

Tools to Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Video 2 Transcript

Alrighty, and welcome to part two of my series on how to make transparent background on Photoshop. So in the last video we discussed all of the lighting tips that I have to get a great image to work with, to increase your chances of getting a really good transparent background.

And now that we've got our image, it's time to open Photoshop. So if we just scooch on over here, as soon as I get outta my browser, you won't see me anymore. So I'm just gonna disappear now.

All right, cool. I've got a folder here. So make transparent background on Photoshop and inside of there I've got my perfect Ditto image.There he is. Again, this guy is in the description. If you guys wanna work on him, you can download him directly from my website and have a crack at this tutorial on the exact same subject for me.

But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna right click, open with, and select Photoshop. So this is the latest version of Photoshop. And if you haven't got an up to date version, you can just go to Adobe's website and suss out which package is gonna be right for you.

I did have the Adobe Full Creative Suite at one point but I thought I don't actually even use Illustrator or InDesign, Photoshop's mainly the one that I use all the time. So, yeah. Anyway, okay, cool.

So once we're open in Photoshop, it'll all look like this. If you're brand new in Photoshop, don't freak out. There is so many different tools in here but for this particular tutorial, we're only gonna be using about three or four things in Photoshop. So you don't have to worry. It's actually very simple.

Now, the first thing we wanna do is get our properties panel open. Now, where is that? For me, I have it right here. I can see that already. However, if you can't see yours all you need to do is go to window and click properties and it'll automatically pop it open for you. So once your property panel's open, you wanna pull this down here and you wanna click quick actions and it's gonna bring up two tools.

So you've got select subject. So what that does is it guesses where the subject is in the image and it'll make a selection. These little dotty things, we call them running ants. And we've also got a remove background tool. I'm gonna get rid of that selection by pressing command D and pretty much you guessed it. We're just gonna click remove background. All right. And what's gonna happen when Photoshop receives that signal from us to remove background.

What it's gonna do is it's gonna suss out all of the pixels in the image and it's gonna go, okay, there's a large variety of images that are the same colour and there's also something in the centre that's completely different. And again, going back to our photo tips, making sure that colour differentiation.

This is where this really comes in handy because that's exactly what Photoshop's just gone and done. It's gone and found all of those pixels by colour and it's made a cutout for us. Sweet.

And as you can see from one click, it's not done a bad job, right. Like it's pretty good. And if we go to our layers panel, you'll see here what's happened is Photoshop's actually created a layer mask. In short, the easiest way to explain a layer mask is it's just a sublayer that sits over the top of your real image, and see how the layer mask is in black and white.

Well, all that's saying is whatever's in white, it's revealing of the image below it and what's in black, it's hiding. So it makes sense that we've got a layer mask over here. We can see Ditto is like, the outline is all in white and that's exactly what we're seeing on the screen. And then in black the background that we had, we want it hidden.

If you press shift and then left click, it'll turn the layer mask off so you can see the original. And then if you just press shift and click again, it'll show you what it's actually layer masked. Now this layer mask actually looks quite good, okay. Like for one click, it's not bad, but if you look up really close at the bottom of Ditto here, you can see some of the shadow has still been put in.

Stuff like this is pretty hard to avoid in the photo imaging phase. So it's kind of inevitable and you've gotta deal with it somehow, depending on how good the software is. And unfortunately, Photoshop's not recognised this as not being part of the subject. So we do need to fix it. And the way that we would fix a jagged edge like this is we would just subtract a little bit more of our subject from the layer mask.

In this layer mask here, these jagged points are present. And the way we get rid of them is by using the exact same colour that we wanna remove with. So black removes part of the image, white brings it back.

So just for example, let's get our paint brush. This is the paint brush here. We're gonna set our foreground colour to black. We're gonna make our brush size a little bit smaller. I'm gonna go about 25 pixels. Yeah, that looks good.

And then if I make sure my layer mask is selected and then start painting, you'll see that it starts to take some of the image away. Now, if I accidentally go whoa, up like that and go, "Shit, I just accidentally whited out a heap of my thing." I would just change the foreground colour to white and then I can paint back over it.

And it brings it back. A layer mask is so much more effective than using something like the eraser, because if you use the eraser, it actually gets rid of the image. There's no opportunity to bring it back. But when you have a layer mask, it's just so much better for bringing parts of the image back that you accidentally delete or if the auto layer mask does that. But yeah.

So what we're gonna have to do, I'm gonna actually make my brush way smaller and I'm gonna get right in nice and close. I'm also making sure that I'm on a soft round brush by the way. And I'm gonna go back to black and I'm gonna get rid of some of the parts that should have been collected by the layer mask or the original background removal tool. I mean, Photoshop's done a pretty good job straight out the gate with what they did, but it's just these little shadows that need to be getting rid of.

And that is not a problem. Like it's pretty easy and it's not too time consuming too. I guess if you have to do this on multiple images, like a hundred images, it could be a little bit difficult but right now that's the best technology that Photoshop can offer.

And yeah, that's just how we do it. And depending, it usually should be pretty good. Like this won't take me too long. You just literally have to go along and see, I probably got that a little bit too much there. Yeah, okay. Zoom.

So I'm gonna speed this up a little bit. I'm gonna go through and just refine my edges and then I'll be right back and show you what the final result looks like. Okay. Ta-da! There we go. So I've just gone ahead and done my refining and this is now looking really, really nice and smooth. There's no jagged lines.

There's no shadows. It all looks pretty damn good to me. I could probably, because I'm a perfectionist. Could probably just, oh, get rid of a little bit more there. Oh God, I'm terrible. Okay, cool. Now I'm happy with that.

And I feel like this is quite professional and again, if we wanna just see how far we've come already, we go shift, click the layer mask. You can see the original and then what it looks like after you've removed the background.

It's pretty cool, isn't it? I might just quickly reference my blog post, just to make sure I know where I'm up to. Hello again. So yeah, we've gone through all of these parts as you can see. We've been here, we've seen the jagged edges.

We've cleaned up the bottom there and now we're left with a beautiful cutout of our Ditto. So we're now ready for the next step, which is how to actually export your image with a transparent background. I'll explain all about that in the next video.

There is a few steps to that. Just in terms of files, what they do, why we save them the way we save them. And yeah, I'm gonna get into the guts of that in the next video, but for now you should have a beautifully cutout Ditto. So I'll see you for part three of how to make transparent background on Photoshop.

Now that we have the perfect image to create a transparent background, we can now open Photoshop.

I’m on a mac so to do that I’m going to:

Right click

Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Right Click

Select “open with”

Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Open With

And select Adobe Photoshop

Open Adobe Photoshop - Open With - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

If you’re brand spanking new to Photoshop, all the panels and buttons might look a bit crazy and overwhelming, and that’s ok because out of all the tools Photoshop has to offer we’re only going to be using 3 - 4 of them.

Next, we need to make sure our properties panel is visible.

If you can’t immediately see the properties menu available on the right hand menu, all you need to do is click:

"Window"

Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Select window

Select "properties"

How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Select Properties

Once you've clicked "properties" you should see a menu like this:

Properties panel - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Now we have our properties panel open, navigate to the “Quick Actions” section and click “Remove Background”

Navigate to Quick Actions and press remove background

Instantly after clicking the “remove background” button, Photoshop will automatically create a layer mask around your subject and remove what it thinks is the background.

How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop - Remove Background

If you’re unfamiliar with what a layer mask is, it’s pretty much a sublayer that sits on top of your main image and it allows you to add and subtract parts of your image at any given time using the brush tool.

And as you can see by the auto generated result, Photoshop didn’t do a bad job at all for a click of a button right?

Ditto Original Cut Out - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

HOWEVER!

If you look closely, you can see the cut out is a little jagged and harsh around the bottom where the natural shadow from the light is occurring.

You could prevent this from happening if you were to toy around with your lighting a bit more when taking your images but it’s actually very easy to fix right here in Photoshop by slightly adjusting our layer mask.

When it comes to adjusting our layer mask we need to use the brush tool.

When the brush tool’s foreground colour is set to black, you can hide more of the image and if you wish to bring some of the image back, you just need to switch the foreground colour to white.

In this case, we want to remove more of our image so we’re going to set our brush to soft round, set our foreground colour to black and set our brush size to about 25px. (you may need to go smaller depending on the intricacy of your subject)

Layer Mask Image - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

NOTE: Before you start refining your edges with your brush, make sure your layer mask is actually selected otherwise you'll end up painting black onto the main image.

Ditto Bottom Before & After - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Now with our layer mask selected and our brush set, all we need to do is go in and gently soften any of those harsh edges that we can see until we're happy with our result.

After a bit of tweaking, your background should be completely removed and your subject should be looking smooth and well cut out.

How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

How To Export An Image With a Transparent Background on Photoshop

Now we've successfully removed our background, we need to export our image as a .psd file and .png file.

Video 3 Transcript

Hello, and welcome to part three of how to make transparent background on Photoshop series. In the previous step, we cut our Ditto out.

We're up to step three, which is how to export an image with transparent background on Photoshop. Now that we've successfully learned how to make transparent background on photoshop, we've gotta create two types of files.

There's a PSD file, and a PNG file. So when we are talking about PSD files, that is Photoshop's native file type, all right? So if you save a PSD file, pretty much all the Photoshop data that was used to generate the image is saved and preserved in that photo.

So for example, see how we've got the layer mask and our original image in this document. If we save this as a PSD file, every time we open the file, we're always gonna have the layer mask, and we're gonna have the original image, and we're always gonna be able to use the paint brush to add and subtract a little bit more, or change the appearance of our layer mask if we want.

It just helps preserve the ability to go back in and edit stuff later if you decide that you don't like something about your final image, okay? It's very very important to save Photoshop documents.

When it comes to saving a PSD file, all you need to do is pop on over to Photoshop after you've done all of your work. So in this case, we've made a layer mask with using the remove background tool, we've gone in with our paint brush, we've made the edges all nice and smooth. We're happy with how it's looking.

Now, we're wanting to save it as a PSD file. So we're gonna go save as, and we're gonna name it appropriately, so save as let's say, Ditto Transparent Background. Cool, we're gonna make sure that our destination folder is selected.

A lot of the time desktop is like the default, but we wanna make sure it's going into our, where is it? Make Transparent Photoshop Background folder, 'cause that's where our Perfect Ditto original PNG is sitting.

And then last, we wanna make sure that Photoshop is our file format, okay? If we use PNG or TIF, it's not gonna preserve all of that Photoshop data for us. So we're gonna click Photoshop to save that and click save, Maximise Compatibility?

Yep, okay. Now what will happen is when we go and check our folder, you'll see that we've got Perfect Ditto there which is our original image, and we've got Ditto Transparent Background.psd. Great, we're on fire.

We just saved our first PSD, and now forever as long as we keep that PSD in the folder, we're always gonna be able to come in, adjust the layer mask, maybe even change the colour of him, and easily re-export it if we want to.

So next up we are saving our PNG file. So PNGs simply put, they're known as portable network graphics, and they're a file type that allows for transparency in an image. So they're similar to a JPEG in terms of they hold photographic information except PNGs, they're rendered using lossless compression, and that's what allows for transparency in parts of the image, okay? JPEGs don't support transparency.

So if I were to save this image here with the transparent background as a JPEG, the background would either come out white or grey, 'cause it automatically wants to put something there, but the PNG file allows that transparency to keep existing. So we're gonna go and save our PNG now, but first, what you're gonna notice in your image in Photoshop, is we've got a heap of unnecessary blank space now, so you can see all of this blank space here.

And what happens is if we export this as a PNG in this current size, the file is actually gonna be bigger, and longer, and taller than it actually needs to be. It also adds to the overall file size, so we need to make this a little bit smaller.

And in order to fix this, we need to crop the stage. However, you know I was just telling you that saving a PSD file helps you keep all of the original stuff about the photo? If we crop this and then press save, we're then gonna edit our original PSD file that we just saved. And the thing with saving this file is we wanted to preserve all of the original qualities.

So if we crop it and save it again, it's not gonna have all of the original qualities of how big the image actually is, it's only ever gonna give us a cropped version. So to fix that, we're actually gonna duplicate our file, and we're gonna rename it with Cropped, okay. Cropped, so Ditto Transparent Background Cropped.

That's what we're gonna call it, and then we're gonna double click that, and it's gonna open it up in Photoshop for us.

What you'll also wanna do in this case just to avoid editing the wrong image, I do this all the time, but cause you might have two images that look the same, and depending on what tab you're on you'll be like, "oh, doing edits here," and then you'll flip over here and do more edits, so I always just close out the original, and make sure I'm working on one file, the one file that I actually wanna work on okay?

So now we've got two PSD files, we've got the cropped one and what we're gonna do with the cropped one is we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna click this tool here, and this is the Crop tool. And with the Crop tool we're just gonna drag our edges down, so they're as close to our subject as possible.

We don't wanna cut off any of our object. So we'll just squeeze these in, make them nice and tight like that, and then when we're happy with the crop we're gonna click Enter, and immediately after we click Enter, and we're happy with that crop, we're gonna press Command + S. Command + S is the hot keys for saving on the go.

And as you'll see here, we've now got Ditto Transparent Background normal, with all of the original features, and then now we've got Ditto Transparent Cropped which is just the cropped version.

If we click over here and we do our little Shift + X, you can see now that we've cropped it, we actually don't have any of the original image left, like it's literally just this much, which we don't want in the original file.

That's exactly the point I'm kind of making with that. So yeah. Now we've got our cropped version, now we're ready to export our PNG file. So the way that we export our PNG file is we're going to come back over to Photoshop, might move my face over like that, come back over to Photoshop, we're gonna go File, and we're gonna go down to Export, Quick Export as PNG. Then we're gonna get another Save window.

This Save window's got a few less options, you've pretty much just got file name and the destination folder. And here we're gonna go Ditto Transparent Cropped, and we're gonna change that to Ditto Transparent Background Final, Final, yeah, we'll just call it Final, Ditto Transparent Background Final. Make transparent background, yep, that's our destination folder that we want, and we're gonna click save.

And then if we come over to our folder we've now got our Perfect Ditto original image, we've got our Ditto Transparent Background.psd file which has got all of the original qualities, we've also got our Cropped PSD file with the new qualities, and then we've also got our final image, which is our Ditto with a transparent background, PNG. Look at that, isn't he sexy?

I probably could have done a better job to make transparent background on Photoshop by trimming these edges here, but you get the point. And the way you tell, if you press Space Bar, you can see when the background kind of shows through blurry here, you know that it's a transparent background, and you've done the right job.

Now this file is ready for anything you like. So you can upload it to your Amazon Store, 'cause Amazon, they only allow products with a plain white background, right? You've just gotta have the product and a plain white background, that's all you're allowed on Amazon. So that's what something like this is perfect for.

You could also use this for collages. So even with my YouTube channel, see how I've made like a little 3D version of this Ditto, but I did the exact same thing that I just showed you in Photoshop to cut him out, and I used him in my channel art.

So for this, I just dragged my PNG file into my channel art and it just slots in perfectly. So yeah, that's exactly how you make a transparent background on Photoshop. Now, in the next part of the video, yes wait, there's more, I actually wanted to dive into another software that is really great for achieving results like this, that's in my opinion, probably a little bit easier than Photoshop.

I did just wanna throw it in as a bonus because it's good to know what softwares are out there, and depending on your needs, what one software offers compared to another can really make a difference, depending on your whole universe and what you need to use on the internet.

So if you're interested in finding out a little bit more about another software that I would use to remove the background, then make sure you click in the cards, or you could leave this video now because I've shown you how to make a transparent background on Photoshop, so yeah. If you found these series of videos helpful, make sure you give them a thumbs up, 'cause it really helps in the YouTube algorithm.

And if you wanna see more software tutorials that help you shit get done, just click the Subscribe button and you'll get notifications when I upload new series like this. Thank you. If you got any questions as well leave them in the comment section, and I'll see you in the next bonus video. Ciao!

Ditto FInal Stages - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

About .psd Files

.psd files are Photoshop's native file type.

Saving our image as a .psd file will allow us to preserve all of the photoshop data we used to generate this image.
e.g Our original photograph + our layer mask that we used to remove the background.

This means in future if we ever decide that we want to refine or adjust our layer mask, we can easily do so by opening our .psd file in Photoshop and making the changes we want before re-exporting a new .png file.

How To Save a .psd File

To save your image as a .psd select "File" then "Save As"

Ditto Before Crop - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

Next, you'll be presented with the Save Screen. On this screen you'll want to ensure you've done the following:
- Named your file appropriately.
- Ensure "photoshop" is selected as the format setting.
- Ensure the file's save destination is correct.
- Click "Save"

After clicking save, navigate to your destination folder and you should now be able to see your saved .psd file.

Now we've saved our .psd file, it's time to export our .png file.

About .png Files

Simply put, .png files (aka portable network graphics) are a file type that allows for transparency in the final image.

.png files are similar to .jpg files except .png files are rendered using lossless compression which allows for transparency in the image.

Preparing Your Image For .png Export

Before we get into of exporting our .png, you'll probably notice that we have a great deal of unnecessary blank space around our subject now...

If this space isn't removed before exporting our final .png file, the blank space will be written into our final image and make the final bigger than it actually needs to be.

To fix this we're going to need to crop our image as close as possible to our subject to reduce the amount of surrounding blank space.

However, if we crop the .psd file that we just saved, we'll lose the original preserved Photoshop data that allows us to access the original version and size of our image.

So to get around this issue, we're going to duplicate our original .psd file in our destination folder and update the name to contain the word cropped.

By doing this, we are able to keep a .psd file that contains our image's original size as well as one that contains the cropped size.

In the tech world, it's always best to keep a backup of your originals because sometimes you can make some hectic mistakes that are irreversible and if you don't have back up files of your original, sometimes you have to start from scratch which let's be real... No one likes wasting their own time.

So just duplicate the file. 😂

Once you've duplicated the file, open it in Photoshop and close the original to avoid editing the wrong image.

Next, we'll want to navigate to our "Crop Tool" and move the crop edges as close to our subject as possible.

Once you've tightened your crop margins, hit "enter" and then "command+s".

This will apply your crop and save a new .psd file of your cropped subject.

Ditto Cropped - How To Make Transparent Background on Photoshop

How To Export a .png File

Now that we've created and saved our cropped .psd file, we're finally ready to export our final subject as a .png file with a transparent background.

To export your images as a .png file, select "File", "Export" and then "Quick Export as PNG"

Just like saving our .psd file, the save screen will pop up and you'll want to ensure you've done the following:
- Named your file appropriately.
- Ensure the file's export destination is correct.
- Click "Save"

And again, just like saving our .psd file, your final .png image with a full transparent background should be visible in your destination folder!

Congratulations! You've learnt how to make transparent background on Photoshop! 🎉

If you're like me and want to compare your original image with your final just to see how you did, I always open both of them and have a look just for good measure.

Other Methods To Remove The Background of An Image.

At the beginning of this blog post I mentioned that I'd also introduce you to another really effective software on the market that can also help you with making your background transparent.

In some cases, it's even easier!

The software I'm referring to is Canva.

In short, Canva is an all in one graphic design tool perfect for all kinds of businesses from sole traders, to small business owners right up to large enterprises.

The reason Canva is such a great tool is because it enables just about anyone with basic computer skills to achieve decent graphic design outcomes without needing to be or hire an actual graphic designer.

Canva does have it's limits though and it won't give you the same unique artistic results that you would expect from a real graphic designer.

However, the templates and tools that it does provide can certainly help you quickly create professional looking graphics that do the job.

Including removing the background of your images!

Canva does offer a free account plan however, in order to use their Background Remover tool, you will need to have a pro account.

At the time of writing this post, Canva Pro Accounts will cost you $17.99 per month.

The cost of a Canva Pro Account is slightly more expensive than Adobe's Photography Bundle so when it comes to choosing one of these softwares to work with it will really depend on your current needs aside from removing backgrounds...

Anyway, if you're keen to background removal a go in Canva, head to canva.com and create your pro account before continuing to the next step.

How To Remove Background On Canva

Document Set Up On Canva

Once you're inside the Canva interface, the first thing you'll want to do is set up a document in the correct size.

Because we are working with one of our own images and not a template, we're going to need to create a custom design.

To do this, you need to click "Create a Design" and then "Custom Design"

Next, you'll be prompted to set the dimensions for your new design.

Because we know our subject will fit into a square canvas, we're going to make our new design a square shape by setting our width and height to 2000 pixels each.

NOTE: 2000px by 2000px is actually quite large for the type of file we are producing here but the reason I'm starting with such large dimensions is because I want the software to have the best chance of cutting my subject out smoothly.

If we work with a canvas that is too small, our image will be more pixelated when we load it into Canva which may result is a rather average looking cut out in the end.

So once you've set you dimensions click "Create new design".

Now that we've got our document setup complete, it's time to import our image.

To do this, all we need to do is locate our image on our drive or computer, then drag & drop it into our Canva document.

Once our image has loaded into Canva, all we need to do is make sure our image is selected and then click "Edit image" and the image editor panel should instantly pop up on the left hand side.

Inside the "Edit image" panel you'll see a beach ball icon with a half transparent background.

This is the Background Remover tool!

Once you've located it, give it a click and watch the magic happen!

As you can see from the image above, the Background Remover tool has done a pretty good job of removing our background.

Upon closer inspection, Canva has actually done an even better job with 1 click than Photoshop did!

Judging by these results, no further refining is really needed however, if for some reason Canva produces a jagged edge on your subject, there is an "Erase & Restore" tool that becomes available right after you remove the background.

These tools work very similarly to the layer mask and paint brush method that we used in the Photoshop component of this tutorial.

The only downside with this tool is the brush options are very basic and the ability to soften the eraser edges is not possible which makes erasing jagged edges in Canva a little more tedious than in Photoshop.

How To Export a PNG With a Transparent Background with Canva

Now that we've successfully removed our background using Canva, it's nearly time to export our final .png image but first...

Just like in Photoshop, you'll see that yet again we have a heap of unnecessary blank space on our canvas.

To fix this we first need to crop the edges of our subject as close as possible.

To do this, click "Crop" and drag the edges down to fit the subject.

Once our subject has been cropped, we now want to expand its size to fit our canvas.

To do this, select your subject, hold "option/alt" and drag one of the white dots outwards until your subject fits into the canvas.

As soon as we're happy with the size of our subject in comparison to our canvas, we're now ready to export our final image from Canva.

To begin the export process, click "Share" then "Download".

After you click "Download" your image download settings will pop up.

In these setting you'll want to make sure you've done the following:
- Set "PNG" as your file type.
- Set your final image dimensions. In this case I've chosen to reduce the size of my image from 2000px by 2000px to 1000px by 1000px.
- Ensure "Transparent background" box is checked.
- Click "Download"

Once you click the final "Download" button your .png file will automatically start downloading to your computer.

My best suggestion after the download is complete is to move your final image into the project folder you are working on for this specific job.

That way the image remains organised & accessable at all times.

And that's pretty much how to remove backgrounds on Canva. To check the final result, just double click the image from your desktop and the final .png image will reveal itself.

Conclusion

Congratulations on making it to the end of this tutroial!

Regardless of which software you ended up using to make your background transparent, you should now have a .png file of your subject that looks clear, professional and ready to use!

It's clear that both Canva & Photoshop both do a great job when it comes to removing the background of an image.

As mentioned previously, your choice of software should really be based on your overall needs.

If you enjoyed reading this post and found it helpful in removing your background please remember to give it a share using the social icons above or below.

If you have any feed back on what you did and didn't like about the experience, I'd love to hear from you in the comments so I can make better software tutorials in the future!

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How to Make Transparent Background on Photoshop