Easily make background transparent, change or remove

You can easily change or remove the background of a picture with GIMP. Just as easily you can also make the background of an image in the free image editing tool transparent. Only a few steps are required to achieve the desired result. 

GIMP: remove background

Before you can give your image a new background with GIMP or make the original background transparent, you must first remove it. How this works, we show you in the following illustrated instructions, who knows about GIMP, but can also scroll down directly to text instructions:

Text Instructions:

1. Opens the desired image by her on the tab file and then ... Open as levelclicks. Alternatively you can also press the key combination Ctrl + Alt + O.
2. Then select the appropriate image and click on Open .
3. Now you need the Layers menu . If the Layers menu is not displayed, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L to invoke it. Right-click on the layer of your image and select Add alpha channel .
4. Select the image area you want to keep. You can do this with different tools:
5. For more complex images you can use the lasso tool (F) .
6. For simple graphics, the wand (U) is often enough .
7. If you want to use the magic wand to mark several areas , hold down the Shift key - a small plus symbol should now appear next to the cursor. Make a left click on the other areas .
8. Click with the right mouse button on the image and selects selection point Invert from. Alternatively you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + I to invert the selection .
9. Again makes a right-click and select among Edit the point deletion from. Alternatively, you can simply press the Delete key to delete the selected areas and remove the background.

Finally you can give the picture a new background or save it. Keep in mind that not all image formats support transparency and alpha channels - in this case image formats such as PNG or TIFF are suitable .

Change the background in GIMP

If you do not want to have a transparent background, you can now easily put another background in the picture. Proceed as follows:

1. Open the folder by saving the background you want for your picture on your computer.
2. Click on it and drag it directly into the Layers menu of GIMP.
3. The image should appear directly as a background. Maybe the size or position does not fit yet. In this case you can:
4. Move the background image to the correct position with the move tool (M) OR
• Make a right click on the background and adjust the size via the menu item Level by plane ... to the right size.