How to make a transparent background in Gimp. Creating a transparent background in GIMP

Transparency of a layer or background allows you to overlay different parts of an image or merge several images into one. This is the principle of animation in particular. In Gimp, as in other raster graphics editors, you can create a new file with a predefined transparent background. You can set background transparency for an existing file, even saved in formats that do not support it. Finally, you can use different effects based on transparency.

Behind transparency in Gimp The so-called alpha channel responds. Let's consider all three options listed above in their simplest form.

1. Create a new file with a transparent background. Open the menu File — Create. A window will appear in which you can set all the parameters of the new image. Template and image size are the main parameters. The rest are called by pressing the plus sign next to the phrase Advanced options. Among the advanced options is the Transparent background option. To get to it, click the triangle next to the word Background and choose Transparent. Please remember that the jpg extension does not support transparency.

2. Another option. We already have an image in jpg format - this is a frame downloaded from the Internet, which for some reason has lost its transparency in the center. What should I do with it? , which must be there so that you can insert a photo inside. It is clear that we need to remove, that is, erase this very middle. Usually it is white, so you can use a tool that in Gimp is called Select Contiguous Areas, but out of a habit left over from Photoshop, it is called the magic wand. Everything would be fine, but for some reason, instead of the cut out area, the background color still remains. Not transparent. You can correct the situation by adding an alpha channel to the image. So, select either in the top menu or, in the contextual right-click, Layer - Transparency - Alpha Channel. Now, when you delete any area, the space underneath it becomes transparent.

Now you can safely click the magic wand in the center and press DELETE. The desired transparency will appear in the center of the frame. For greater effect, you can blend the selection a little before cutting. For this we choose Selection — Shade. Set the required number of raster points or other units. Only then do we carry out the removal operation. Here's what might happen.

Since the selection will not be needed in the future, remove it: Selection — Take off.

3. Finally, let's look at one of the simple but very interesting effects called Map without seams. This filter is also called a seamless transparent background. We use the same frame for work as before. Let's look at the screenshots. Open the file with the frame, select from the menu Filters — Map — No seams. Next we work in the window Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo. If this window is not visible, then activate it and make it visible through the menu item Window.

Most often, a transparent background in an image is required to create branding, collages and logos for videos. Titles in a film, graphic memes on the Internet, and, in the end, chromakey technology (a green background when filming a film) also have much in common with transparent background technology.

To complete this task, we will use the free program Gimp 2.8, which is not inferior in its capabilities to many paid analogues. Let's look at how to make a transparent background in Gimp and how to further use an image with a transparent background.

We have two pictures and we want to make a collage out of them. Place a picture of a penguin on a photo of a tropical beach. Why not. Penguins need to rest too :)

Penguin - symbol of Linux.


Tropical beach is a place where Linux users relax :)

Fast way

Launch Gimp and open both image files.

We begin to move the penguin under the palm tree. Let's use the widely used "Copy" -> "Paste" method. For this:

• activate the window with the penguin and copy the penguin to the clipboard;
• then we go to the window with a palm tree through Edit/Paste (Ctrl+V) insert an image with a penguin.

Ready. The penguin is under the palm tree, but something is wrong. If we simply copy one image on top of the other, we'll see that the white background around the penguin obscures the tropical beach portion of the image. This doesn't suit us. So we need to get rid of the white background. Or, in other words, make a background transparent. Then objects from the picture of a tropical coast will be visible through this transparent background.

The right way

A transparent background in gimp is done in several ways, but I will give one as the most reliable and works in any case.

Step 1: Alpha Channel

At the first stage, you need to decide whether the image has an alpha channel. If it does not exist, then it must be created. He will be responsible for transparency. Get used to it right away, if somewhere they talk about an alpha channel, it means transparency and vice versa. Select from the menu Layer/Transparency/Add Alpha

If the alpha channel already exists (the menu is inactive), then there is no need to add anything. If the menu is active (allows you to add), then add an alpha channel to our image.

There is another way to check for the presence of an alpha channel in an image. To do this, open the dockable dialog " Channels", through the menu Windows/Dockable Dialogs/Channels. If the channel list contains " Alpha", then everything is fine and your image is ready to create transparency.

Step 2. Transparency zones

After we have prepared the image for working with transparency (added an alpha channel), we proceed to defining the areas in the image that will be transparent. I marked in the drawing with numbers those areas through which palm trees, sea and sand will be visible.

Selecting zones in Gimp is a separate story, which is not enough for one publication. There are several tools, plugins and many ways to select a group of pixels for further processing. In our case, we will look at the simplest way to select a zone using the “Select Adjacent Areas” tool.

This tool operates on the principle of adding to the selected area " All pixels are the same color" around the one you clicked on. In our case with the penguin, this is what we need.

Step 3. Transparent background

Now you're ready to create a transparent background. To do this, press the key Delete and the image takes the form.


What was previously white has become a gray “square”, this is Gimp’s way of showing transparent areas.

Our image with a transparent background is ready. You can burn it to disk for later use, post it on the Internet, or send it by mail. This is a normal image and most viewers and browsers do a fine job of displaying it.

Step 4. Write to file

Most often, images with a transparent background are stored in PNG, GIF and TIFF formats. In PNG and TIFF, transparency is implemented through the alpha channel, which is responsible for areas with a transparent background. Using the alpha channel you can make not only a transparent, but also a translucent image. GIF has a slightly different technology; there is no alpha channel and transparency is implemented as an independent color in the palette. There is no translucency in GIF.

To record an image with transparent areas in PNG format, select the menu File/Export As(note, it is Export As, not export; in some versions of Gimp this line is not translated into Russian) and in the dialog that appears, enter the file name, for example linux.png. Next, click the button " Export", in the dialog for setting PNG parameters, do not touch anything and click " Export".

And this is what the settings look like when exporting to GIF. We also don’t touch anything and press “ Export".

Here's another interesting point. When you open a PNG or GIF image in Gimp, there is no need to check whether there is an alpha channel or not, as described in Step 1. The alpha channel in a PNG or GIF always exists and you can immediately start working with a transparent background without manual adding an alpha channel.

Step 5: Putting it all together

Now let's check the result of our work. We'll take an image with a transparent background and overlay it on top of a regular image. Let's place the pigguin in the shade of a palm tree:
In the picture with the penguin: Edit/Copy Visible (Shift+Ctrl+C) copy the penguin to the clipboard.
In the picture with palm trees: Edit/Paste (Ctrl+V) insert an image with a penguin into a photo with palm trees.

As you can see, transparency works. Where there used to be a white rectangle, the sea, palm tree and sand are now visible. The collage is ready. The image with the penguin fits seamlessly into the tropical landscape. Now let’s combine all visible layers (and we only have two of them) using the menu command Layer/Attach Layer (Ctrl+H). And write the finished collage to a file File/Export As.
Interestingly, after flattening the layers, the transparent background disappeared. In the final image, where the penguin is under the palm tree, there is no longer a transparent layer. If you want the transparent background on the layer with the penguin to remain for further work on the collage, then write the finished image to an XCF file (a native format for GIMP), just do not bring all the layers together, let them remain separate.

Conclusion

In this article we looked at how to make a transparent background in gimp 2.8. How to overlay an image with a transparent background on top of an existing one. We quickly went through the alpha channel. We learned which graphic formats support transparency. A simple example demonstrated how to work with a transparent background.

Removal background a portrait or photograph of an object is removed if it clutters the photograph or if it is necessary to transfer the object to a different background. This operation can be carried out using a raster graphics editor, say, GIMP.

Instructions

1. Be sure to make a backup copy of the original image (or save it under a different name and only then proceed with modification).

2. For removing background The first method is to select the Scissors tool. Use it to outline the silhouette of the object around which you want to remove the background. Having closed the silhouette, adjust the locations of its points, and if necessary, add new, intermediate ones, the locations of which should also be adjusted. Later, click the middle of the object and the silhouette will become solid and the dots will disappear.

3. Copy the selected object by pressing Ctrl+C. Make a new image of such a size that the given object fits into it. In this case, select the desired color background. Paste the contents of the clipboard there by pressing Ctrl+V. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and click on any point outside the silhouette. Later, you will save the result under a name that does not yet exist. In the same way, you can paste the contents of the clipboard into an existing picture with a background. After this, do not forget to move the object using the arrow keys to the desired location before deselecting it.

4. You can do without creating a new image. To do this, select “Invert Selection” from the “Edit” menu. The object will no longer be selected, but the background will become so. To remove it, press Ctrl+K in the old version of GIMP, and Ctrl+X in the new one. Later, select your desired color background and perform the operation “Image” - “Flatten image”.

5. For removing background The second method is to use the Eraser tool instead of the Scissors tool. Select your desired color background, and then set the diameter of the eraser so that it is easy for them to erase the background around the object. Having cleared the space around it, the remaining areas background delete using the Rectangular Marquee tool and the keyboard shortcut Ctrk+K (or Ctrl+X). After that, flatten the image as above.

6. To now transfer the object to a different background, select the “Magic Stick” tool and click on any point background around the object. After this, perform the operation “Selection” - “Invert Selection”. Press Ctrl+C. Having opened a file with a different background, paste an object into it by pressing Ctrl+V, turn on the Rectangular Marquee tool, adjust the position of the object using the arrow keys, and then click on any point background. Save the result under a different name.

It’s not always the case that when you photograph something, you end up capturing exactly the frame that you wanted. Often, when looking at a photo on a computer, you begin to realize that only a certain fragment is required from each photo. Also, a fragment of a photograph is sometimes necessary if you want to use it to make an avatar on a public network or forum, or some kind of collage. In this article you will learn how to cut out a fragment from a traditional photograph using different programs.

Instructions

1. The most primitive option is to use Adobe Photoshop. Open the program and load the photo you want to crop. On the toolbar, find the Crop tool, the icon of which looks like a black frame. Use the left mouse button to select a rectangular fragment in the photo, frame it by eye or specify the required dimensions in the top panel, and press Enter. Save the new image under any name.

2. You can also obtain a fragment of a picture by cutting out a photograph from a video. To do this, open the video in the storyboard strip and select the desired frame on the viewing screen. Below the screen, click the camera icon (Capture) - the selected frame will be saved in jpeg format and will be mechanically assigned a name with the time and date of the current day.

3. To cut a photo in Corel Photo Paint, upload the photo, and then select the “Image” section in the menu, and then “Cutout Lab”. In the window that appears, use the mouse to select the desired fragment of the selected photo - use the left button to draw a line for the border of the fragment, and erase the lines with the right button. Draw the boundaries around the required fragment, fill the resulting area and click OK. Save the cut out image. After that, open, if necessary, another image into which you want to paste a fragment, the one you just cut out. Scale them to identical sizes and proportions, insert a fragment into the required place in the image, export the resulting file and save it as a jpeg.

Instructions

Be sure to make a backup copy of the original image (or save it under a different name and only then proceed with modification).

For removing background The first method is to select the Scissors tool. Use it to outline the object around which you want to remove the background. Having closed the contour, adjust the positions of its points, and if necessary, add new, intermediate ones, the positions of which must also be adjusted. After that, click the middle of the object and the outline will become solid and the dots will disappear.

Copy the selected object by pressing Ctrl+C. Create a new image of such a size that this object fits into it. In this case, select the desired color background. Paste the contents of the clipboard there by pressing Ctrl+V. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and click on any point outside the outline. After that, save the result under a name that does not exist yet. In a similar way, you can paste the contents of the clipboard into an existing one with a background. After this, do not forget to move the object using the arrow keys to the desired location before deselecting it.

You can do without creating a new image. To do this, select “Invert Selection” from the “Edit” menu. The object will no longer be selected, but the background will become so. To remove it, press Ctrl+K in the old version of GIMP, and Ctrl+X in the new one. After that, select the color you want background and perform the operation “Image” - “Flatten image”.

For removing background the second way is to use the Eraser tool instead of the Scissors tool. Select your desired color background, and then set the eraser diameter so that it can easily erase the background around the object. Having cleared the space around it, the remaining areas background delete using the Rectangular Marquee tool and the keyboard shortcut Ctrk+K (or Ctrl+X). Then flatten the image as above.

To now move the object to another background, select the Magic Wand tool and click on any point background around the object. Then perform the operation “Selection” - “Invert Selection”. Press Ctrl+C. Having opened a file with a different background, paste an object into it by pressing Ctrl+V, turn on the Rectangular Marquee tool, adjust the position of the object with the arrow keys, and then click on any point background. Save the result under a different name.

Related article

Sources:

• how to remove background from photo in gimp

It's not always possible to capture exactly the frame you wanted when photographing something. Often, when looking at a photograph on a computer, you begin to realize that only a specific fragment of the entire photograph is required. Also, sometimes a fragment of a photograph is needed if you want to use it to make an avatar on a social network or forum, or some kind of collage. In this article you will learn how to cut out a fragment from a regular photo using various programs.

Instructions

The easiest option is to use Adobe Photoshop. Open the program and load the photo you want to crop. In the toolbar, find the Crop tool, which is like black. Use the left mouse button to select a rectangular fragment, frame it by eye or select the ones you need in the top panel, and press Enter. Save the image under any name.

You can also get a fragment by cutting a photo from a video. To do this, open

The GIMP program is deservedly considered one of the most powerful graphic editors, and the undisputed leader among free programs in this segment. The capabilities of this application in the field of image processing are almost unlimited. But many users are sometimes confused by such seemingly simple tasks as creating a transparent background. Let's figure out how to make a transparent background in Gimp.

First of all, you need to understand which component in GIMP is responsible for transparency. This composite is the alpha channel. This knowledge will be useful to us in the future. It should also be noted that not all image types support transparency. For example, PNG or GIF files can have a transparent background, but JPEG files cannot.

Transparency is required in various cases. It may be appropriate both in the context of the image itself, and as an element for superimposing one picture on another when creating a complex image, and can also be used in some other cases.

The options for creating transparency in GIMP depend on whether we are creating a new file or editing an existing image. Below we will look in detail at how you can achieve the desired result in both cases.

Create a new image with a transparent background

In order to create an image with a transparent background, first of all, open the “File” section in the top menu and select “Create”.

A window appears in which you set the parameters of the created image. But we will not focus on them, since the goal is to show the algorithm for creating an image with a transparent background. We click on the plus sign next to the words “Advanced options”, and an additional list opens in front of us.

In the additional settings that open, in the “Fill” item, open the list with options and select “Transparent layer”. After that, click on the “OK” button.

Then, you can proceed directly to creating the image. As a result, it will be located on a transparent background. But just don't forget to save it in one of the formats that supports transparency.

Creating a transparent background for a finished image

However, most often it is necessary to make the background transparent not for a picture created from scratch, but for a finished image that needs to be edited. To do this, again go to the “File” section in the menu, but this time select the “Open” item.

A window opens in front of us in which we need to select the image to edit. After we have decided on the choice of image, click on the “Open” button.

As soon as the file opens in the program, we return to the main menu again. Sequentially click on the items “Layer” - “Transparency” - “Add alpha channel”.

Next, we use a tool called “Selecting adjacent areas,” although most users call it a “magic wand” because of its characteristic icon. The "Magic Wand" is located on the toolbar on the left side of the program. Click on the logo of this tool.

After this field, click on the background with the “magic wand” and press the Delete button on the keyboard. As you can see, as a result of these actions, the background becomes transparent.

Making a transparent background in GIMP is not as easy as it seems at first glance. An uninitiated user can spend a long time sorting through the program settings in search of a solution, but still not find it. At the same time, knowing the algorithm for performing this procedure, creating a transparent background for images, each time, as you get better at it, becomes easier and easier.