Help : Removing background from image

[Martin Grimmer]

Adrian,

You will need to vectorise the outline you want over the top (if that makes sense), and then select both the new outline, and the picture below, right click, and select ‘make clipping mask’.

The clipping mask function can also be found under object menu – make sure you select both and that the path is the higher object.

Hope helps.

MArtin

[John Dorling]

What are you planning to do with the graphic? i.e are you putting it on a vehicle or sign, or are you incorporating it into a printed design?

[Adrian Neill]

Hi Martin …. thanks for the very quick reply !!

All sounds ok, but do I vectorise the shape in Illustrator or in another program ?
If I do it in another program (which is easy) I presume I just import it over that image.

Sorry for sounding thick, but this’ll be the first time i’ve used Illustrator.

Hi John, The image will either be on a glass panel or a stainless steel one.

[Martin Grimmer]

Adrian,

you should be able to do the vectorising in another programme and export as EPS. Think from corel (if you are vectorising in corel) you can also save as AI?

Martin

[Owen Lees]

Illustrator has a live trace function which creates paths from bitmaps.

object | live trace

That’s a vectorising gizmo that may help inside Illustrator (at least its in CS3 anyway).

Oo

[Warren Beard]

use the pen tool to draw the outline of the image you want to be seen, then follow Martin-G’s advice on clipping path.

Another way is to open in photoshop, use wand tool to select outside white area and then do the following;

1) make work path from selection
2) double click path and re-name
3) select create clipping path
4) save as eps file
import eps in to Illustrator and your image will be clipped with the path you created.

hope that makes sense and helps.

cheers

Warren

[Simon Strom]

It looks like you’ve already set up your artwork with transparent background. I believe a PNG file type would preserve the transparent background. Also the native Photoshop PSD filetype I think will also keep the background if you’re using it in another Adobe App. Use the "Export as…" command.

[Simon Strom]

Sorry, had a second look and noticed that you do still have a white area around the actual logo. The transparent portion outside of that is what threw me off. You will still need to clean that up by either clipping paths or the magic wand tool as others have already said. But the two formats I mentioned should help preserve that transparency (If you don’t use a clipping path).

[Glenn Sharp]

Adrian,

I’m not sure what version of corel you are using but in 12 you can use the ‘cut out’ feature in Photo-Paint

It’s under the ‘image’ tab on the toolbar…..I’ll not try and explain it because the help within the feature is very good

Just another option if you get stuck

[Mark Jahn]

If It’s just to remove the white background to begin with I would do what Warren suggests and use the magic wand tool but I’d drop the tolerance right down to select the white only then hit delete. Save as PSD or TIFF and open in Illustrator.