5 Super-Easy Techniques for Removing Backgrounds from Stock Images
Have you ever found yourself struggling to find a stock image with a transparent background? Or, maybe you’ve wasted hours of your time trying to remove the background from an image? You’re not alone in being annoyed by this problem. In fact, whenever I mention being a PowerPoint junkie and online training developer, I always get the same question:
“What’s the easiest way to get rid of backgrounds on stock images?”
As I researched this topic, I quickly discovered why we’re all so frustrated: there is no silver bullet technique for background removal. On the one hand, removing backgrounds from photos can be tedious and time-consuming work—often with only so-so results. On the other, if there’s any one thing that sets apart a standard-looking presentation from an exceptional-looking presentation, it’s the visual integration of images into the slide background.
So where’s the sweet-spot between the amount of glory realized from a slick-looking design and the amount of effort put forth to achieve the look? (I call this balance the “glory-to-effort” ratio, i.e. the amount of glory one is likely to receive relative to the amount of effort required to achieve said glory.)
Because your “glory-to-effort” ratio probably changes on a case by case basis, it’s great to have a range of tools & techniques at your fingertips—from quick-and-dirty to highly professional. Listed below are ratings and video tutorials for 5 tools that I commonly use:
1. PowerPoint (Quality: Medium, Ease: Simple!)
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2. FotoFlexer.com (Quality: Low, Ease: Simple!)
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3. Paint.net (Quality: Medium, Ease: Average)
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4. GIMP (Quality: High!, Ease: Takes some effort)
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5. Aviary (Quality: High!, Ease: Takes some effort)
While there may not be a silver bullet, there are plenty of cool shortcuts, tricks, free tools, and tutorials. Using any of the tools and techniques I’ve highlighted here means that you don’t need to take a class, buy Adobe Photoshop, bribe a graphic designer, or have any real expertise to seamlessly integrate stock images into your presentations or training.
Of course the quickest and easiest fix is to buy stock images that already have transparent backgrounds. Check out the drop & go character packs from eLearningart.com and eLearningbrothers.com – both of whom sell images of characters in different poses and with different expressions – all of which are on a transparent background. Sweet!
So what design challenges stump and annoy you? Let the Mindflash community help. Click on the comments link to share your story with us.
Trina Rimmer is a learning and communications consultant with twelve years experience designing, developing, and delivering smart, engaging training solutions. When her training skills aren’t being tested by her children, you’ll find her helping others to develop their own design muscles. Contact Trina at trina@rimmer.net.
10 Responses
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merck says:
June 2, 2010 at 2:58 am
Along the same lines of just buying images with transparent backgrounds, I use iStockphoto.com (despite their silly jacking up of prices).
All of my searches include the term “isolated” in order to only get results on plain backgrounds (usu. white as opposed to transparent). So if I’m looking for a picture of a young person playing, I’d enter…
girl skipping isolated
…which would bring me something like this…
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-10787264-jumping-girl.php
…with 200+ choices as of this posting, I’d rate this option…
Quality: High!, Ease: High!
Nice to see the other options though.
Trina Rimmer says:
June 2, 2010 at 4:15 am
Nice tip! I think some of the other stock photo sites (shutterstock, corbis, gettyimages, etc.) also support searching with terms like “isolated” or “transparent.” I also like to search by file type (.png) when that option is available.
Again, nice tip & thanks for commenting!
Trina
Sam says:
June 2, 2010 at 5:25 am
Great tips, specially loved the PowerPoint one. Won’t have to run to the design guys again for quick jobs. Thanks a ton 
Heather Ackmann says:
July 8, 2010 at 12:50 pm
PowerPoint 2010 has a built-in background removal tool that works fairly well.
Trina Rimmer says:
July 8, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Hi Heather,
Thanks for reading the blog and taking the time to comment!
I love the built-in background tool in PowerPoint 2007. My only beef with it is that it can remove similarly colored pixels in areas of the photo you don’t want transparency. I haven’t had a chance to see if the tool is better in 2010, but overall I’ve heard the changes in 2010 are pretty amazing. I’ll be sure to check it out!
Regards,
Trina
Heather Ackmann says:
July 20, 2010 at 11:24 am
Trina,
Yes, the new tool is amazing! In addition to the transparency tool that we had in previous versions, the new background removal tool is the simplest I’ve ever used, allowing you to pick and choose which portions of the background are removed (not just one color).
Would you like a video on it?
Trina Rimmer says:
July 21, 2010 at 8:57 am
Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m going to buy a copy of Office 2010 this weekend and get some first-hand experience with all the new features.
You’ve got me super-excited to see what it can do now!
-Trina
Laura says:
August 17, 2010 at 5:36 am
Hi Trina. I found your tips very helpful but am wondering if you know anything about making a green screen background transparent in a video. Do you know of any really easy to use tools out there than can help to do that? Thank you.
Laura
Trina Rimmer says:
August 18, 2010 at 6:55 am
Hi Laura,
Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply. Not having faced the task of extensive video editing, I felt I should do a bit of research before responding to your comment!
It sounds like you’re looking for a free, user-friendly (perhaps online) tool that will allow you to edit video? If so, you might want to check out http://www.cinefx.org/. It’s a free movie editing tool & effects tool that seems to be the preferred open-source alternative to Adobe After Effects. I also found folks who are using Kino (http://www.osalt.com/kino) – another open source alternative.
Unfortunately, I don’t have hands-on experience with these tools to attest to their ease of use. However, I find that a lot of open-source tools have tons of free “how to” videos online and other types of user community support. For instance when I just did a quick Google search for videos with the keyword “Kino” I got over 10 pages of results full of free tutorials for other users.
Good luck and let us know if you found these or other tools helpful and easy to use.
Thanks for reading,
Trina
