making background transparent?

[lvg4him]

I have a black background that I want to make transparent and I cannot for the life of me figure out how.

HELP! :)

[Debb Cozzi]

You didn't mention what program you are using. If it is Paint Shop Pro you first need to promote your background layer. (In the layers pallet right click your background layer and then click on "Promote Background Layer") Then you need to use your lasso tool or magic wand to select the background. Once the background is selected go to Edit, Cut. That will remove your black background and leave you with a tranparent one. Hope this helps. :)

[Shanearama]

I can help if you're using Photoshop...that's my program. Otherwise I'm pretty useless.
Also how are you planning on using the effect? I love making transparent watermarked images into the backgrounds of my layouts. FIts mostly jsut arranging your layers well (in Photoshop at least it is).
Of course making black transparent is difficult as its going to bleed some of the color out of the background and you'll loose the dramatic emphasis of pure black as the background becomes a dull black or strong grey.
I've done the opposite in this picture:

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=44474&cat=500&page=1

and placed a transparent picture (originally color converted to simple greyscale) on top of a black background for a watermarked type image. Its not my favorite spread overall but my favorite part of it is the background image...I actually hated putting pictures of my ugly mug over top of it.

I'd be happy to help if you can give me a little more of the specifics...

[lvg4him]

I am using photoshop7. I am wanting to remove all the black in the background (rather than trying to trace around everything and all the strands of hair). I will try that, thanks! Gotta head off to bed tonight, try it tomorrow.

[Shanearama]

I use PS 7.0 too.

If the black is an entirely seperate layer its easy. Just create a layer under the black background that is transparent or colored but has a 0% transperency. Then go ahead and delete the black background layer. Voila

However I'm getting the impression your black background is part of a flattened image or layer then its more complicated. You can use the pen command which is far better than the lasso...but I prefer the extract command best. Go to FILTER>>EXTRACT. zoom in tight and use the highlighter to brush around the black border. its time consuming though. Then paint the rest of the black using the bucket and extract away.

sc

[Starling]

You need to do two things. First make sure that your layer is not locked. Double click on it and make it an ordinary layer with no lock.

Now you need to get rid of the black background. If it really is black, use the magic wand tool first and hit delete on whatever it picks up. You might want to do that twice or three times to get rid of as much as possible. Then do a clean up in the areas away from your object with a big (hard edged round) eraser.

At this point you have a bunch of tiny adjustments to make. You can continue to erase, making the eraser smaller. Or you can use one of the selection tools to "draw" around your object. Or you can use the Extract tool that is in the Filter Menu. Extract is especially good if you are trying to extract people with flying hair, but isn't the best tool for extracting objects with hard edges.

Finally, you might want to contract your final selection a few pixels and give it a small feather too. That helps avoid that black and/or white halo when you put your object on a new background. When you think you are finished getting rid of all of the background, Ctrl-click on the layer icon to select everything on that layer, check to see if it is still selecting bits of background and if so deselect and erase some more, and choose Select, Modify, Contract and choose a small pixel size. Then add a feather and you are done.

Remember that the best way to do this kind of project is to use several tools. And the best order might be different from object to object.