A Transparent Solution

Dear Debbie,

When I scan clipart, say black line art as a TIFF or even a JPEG, how can I get it to place on top of a photo without a background? All my cliparts have a white background that covers up the photo!

Thanks in advance,
Whited Out in Iowa

***

Dear Whited Out,

What you have is a transparency problem. The clipart is showing up white because the background is white. You have to make it transparent before you can drop it on top of another picture. Here's how.

Step 1. If you scan your image as line art, it may come into Photoshop as a bitmap (.bmp). If that happens, convert it to Grayscale by going to Image > Mode > Grayscale.

Step 2. Double-click the Background Layer to get the New Layer dialogue box. You want to change the name of the Background Layer so it's no longer locked, so just click OK to rename it Layer 0:

Step 3. Then go to Select > Color Range. Use the dropper to click on your clipart's white background, and adjust the Fuzziness slider to make sure your clipart is properly selected. Click OK:

Step 4. Go to Edit > Cut. Now you've got some clipart with gray-and-white checkers in the background (everywhere there's checkers, there's transparency). So now if you drag the art onto another photo, there will be no white background:

Perhaps you will find a better use for this technique than I did:

Hope that helps, and good luck,

Debbie

P.S. If you want to keep the transparency for next time, save your file as a layered PSD or TIFF. If you need a transparent background for the web, do a File > Save For Web. Choose GIF, and make sure Transparency is checked.

Comments

[Whited Out in Iowa]

THANK YOU! That worked!.... in Photoshop! But now I have another problem... when working in Pagemaker and trying to place these same tif's that had a transparent background in photoshop on a photo (or anything else for that matter) in Pagemaker there is still a white background! (oh and btw I usually scan my clipart as tif's). So what am I doing wrong now?

[Dear Debbie]

Hey Whited Out,

Glad it worked. Try saving a transparent GIF in the Save For Web dialogue that I mentioned in my postscript. I don't know much about Pagemaker, but it may work.

Good luck,
Debbie

[Kathy]

Thanks for the great tip! It will be very helpful.

[Daedbird]

There are simpler ways to deal with line art in both Photoshop and layout programs (uch as Pagemaker, Indesign, or Quark). The most universal way to remove any background is to create a clipping path around your artwork. Just select the item you want to show up (or select the white background then inverse your selection) and go to the paths pallet. Clicking on the small triangle button, select make work path, then save path, then clipping path. TaDa, or image will now have no background in any layout program, regardless of file format.
But what I find easier is saving line art as a bitmap tif, then I can change the color of the art in Indesign to whatever I want. There is no background to worry about.
If you use Indesign, it can read PSD layers, so if you have a fade created in Photoshop, it will carry it through.
In Photoshop, I would simply change the layer setting from normal to the desired affect. Darken would work for the simple black image.

[Ros]

Debbie, you're a genius! I've spent hours trying to make a background of a scanned image transparent. Three Photoshop books from the library and countless websites couldn't tell me how to do it, then I came across this post and it's so simple! Thanks a lot.