How To Make A Background Transparent

This tutorial will show you how to make the background of an image transparent so you can use on any color background.

Save this or open an image you would like to use for this tutorial.

• Zoom into the image by using the Navigator (Windows >> Navigator), zoom into whatever is comfortable to you, I usually zoom into about 500% for this particular image.
  
• Then go up to Windows >> Paths, and the Paths window is selected, then use the arrow and select "New Path", on the pop up click okay or name the path what you like.
  
• Now select the Freeform Pen Tool and begin drawing a line around your object.
  
• After going around your image, you can CTRL Click and Drag on the line and move the line so its exactly where you want it. If you want to add a new point or little box, then just click on the line.
  
• If you notice on the image above, that after I went around and released the mouse key that the outlining is not pefectly on the form of the image, so as I stated above, all you need to do now is: CTRL Click on the line and move the line so it's exactly where you want it. If you want to add a new point or little box, then just click on the line.
• This is what I got after moving the lines around.
  
• Once you got it like you want, then Right Click on the menu, choose Make Select, on the pop up, leave the Feather Radius at 0 and antialias checked off, then click OK:
  
• Your selection will look like this now:
  
• At this point, you want to CTRL + C (copy) and CTRL + V (paste) onto another background, like I did here. Below is a zoomed in version and a original sized version, but in the zoomed you dont exactly see white but it is a light color that when zoomed out will look like white, but to get rid of that yo would have to draw the outline even inside more.
  
• You can also save as a transparent gif, to add on any colored background, to do this.
• Paste it to a new image with a transparent background, then go to File >> Save for Web and use these settings:
  
• Click Save and save your image, this is mine on as a transparent .gif
  
• It's not perfect but it shows you how to do it, and I know with practice you can and will get better.

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