Remove a picture background – You can remove a background from a picture to accent or highlight the subject of the picture or to remove distracting detail.
Compressing a picture to reduce the size of the file changes the amount of detail retained in the source picture. This means that after compression, the picture can look different from before it was compressed. Because of this, you should compress the picture and save the file, before removing the background. You can redo the compression even after you save the file as long as you have not closed the program that you are working in, if the compression plus the background removal is not the look you want.
- Click the picture that you want to remove the background from.
- Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Background group, click the Background Removal button.
- Click one of the handles on the marquee lines and then drag the line so that it contains the portion of the picture that you wish to keep and excludes most of the areas you wish to remove.
In many cases, you can get the result you want without any additional work by experimenting with the position and size of the marquee lines. - If necessary, do one or both of the following:
- To indicate which parts of the picture you do not want automatically removed, click Draw Lines Marking Areas to Keep.
- To indicate which parts of the picture you do want removed in addition to those automatically marked, click Mark Areas to Remove.
- If you change your mind about an area you have marked with a line, either to keep or to remove it, click Delete Mark and then click the line to change it.
- Refine group on the Background Removal tab
- Click Close and Keep Changes in the Close group.
