Removing an image background: here’s how with Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET, and PowerPoint

We will start by introducing background removal using a program that you probably wouldn’t expect to be able to do this: Microsoft PowerPoint. Surprisingly, the results are good, and it’s a program that most Windows users have access to, and one that’s commonly used on other operating systems as well.

1. Select the background image you want to keep and drag it onto an empty slide.

4. This can be corrected by selecting the buttons “mark areas to keep” and “mark areas to remove” at the top left and clicking on the corresponding image sections with the mouse. Sometimes it takes several clicks.

5. The image is now cropped and you can move, enlarge, reduce, or rotate it as you like.

Adobe Photoshop is undoubtedly the best all-rounder and the long-standing go-to for image processing. The professional software offers extensive possibilities to crop even the most detailed photos. A two-week free trial can be found on the official Adobe website.

1. Open the image you want to remove the background of in Photoshop.
2. Click on the “quick selection” tool in the left toolbar. Now move your mouse over the areas of the object you want to crop and you’ll notice that Photoshop automatically marks out all areas which are the same color.

3. Even if this method works reliably, parts of the background may be selected by mistake. If this is the case, press and hold the left mouse button and [Ctrl] over it to correct the error.

4. The object is now selected and ready to be cut out. Select the command “invert” in the upper menu bar under “select” – this marks the entire background instead of the object.

5. A padlock icon appears next to the currently selected layer in the “layers” window at the bottom right. Click to enable editing on this layer. Press [Del] to delete the entire background. You should save the image as a PNG file, as this file format can display transparency. Then open your desired background and drag the newly saved image with your cropped object onto the background. If necessary, adjust size, rotation, and alignment using the corresponding tools in the left toolbar.

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a free graphics program available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can download GIMP here.

1. Open your image in GIMP

2. Select the “intelligent scissors” tool from the toolbar on the left. Now click on a point that lies at the transition between the object to be cropped and the background. Then set the next point a little bit away from the first point, again at the edge of the object. Do this until you surround the object to be cropped, and then click on the first point. The closer together the points are, the better the result will be.

3. When the object is completely outlined, confirm with the enter key. The object is now selected.

4. You can use the “lasso” tool to select areas of the object that were not automatically detected by the “intelligent scissors”. To do this, hold down the left mouse button and the shift key while moving along the edge of the object. This works in the same way for areas that were accidentally recorded – simply left click and press [Ctrl].

5. Once you have outlined the object the way you want, click on select and invert in the menu bar. Now use the paint bucket tool and fill the entire area around the object in color - the only important thing is that it does not appear on the object itself. In the menu item “layer” select transparency and then color to transparency. Set the target color to the one which is filled around the object. The background will now be transparent and you can save the image as a PNG file, and then layer it onto a new background.

Another free image editing software is Paint.NET, which is available for Windows only. Originally it was planned as a more versatile replacement for Microsoft Paint. You can download the full version of Paint.NET for free here.

1. Open the image you want to remove the background from

2. Select the “eraser” tool from the toolbar on the left. Delete all areas around your object – you don’t have to be precise.

3. Use the “magic wand” tool to select the other areas to delete. If the magic wand marks a range that is too large or too small, you can adjust the selection using “tolerance value” in the upper bar – a higher tolerance means that more color-like pixels are selected and vice versa. Depending on how much the object to be cropped stands out from the background, this process may have to be repeated a few times.

4. You’ll find that using the wand will save you a lot of work, but its results are sometimes imprecise. Here again, the eraser tool helps you to manually remove unwanted image areas.

5. The cut-out image can now be saved as a PNG file, and placed anywhere on other backgrounds.

The paid online tool Clipping Magic stands out for its ease of use and excellent results. Use the green brush to highlight the image area you want to crop, and a red brush to highlight the background you want to remove. You don’t need to be too exact here, since the application can differentiate between the background and the object very well. You can preview the result directly online – to download the image with a transparent background, however, you must choose a plan with costs. The cheapest is a package of 15 downloads per month.

The AI Background Remover from Icons8 automatically makes individual motifs transparent after you have uploaded an image. You can remove the background of up to three images (JPG or PNG) for free each day without having to register. Click on “Download” to save the cut out image on your device. If you want to increase the daily limit, you have to create an account (also free of charge) and log in with it.