I’ve done this twice now, so I want to write it down before I forget. Maybe it’ll help you too!

How to remove matte backgrounds from images in X easy steps

1. Open image in Photoshop
2. Press ‘Q’
3. Select a paintbrush and paint over the foreground image
(You’ll get a transparent red overlay. Don’t worry about painting outside the lines, you can take care of it later)
4. Press ‘Q’ again
(The overlay disappears and you now have a moving dotted line outlining the area you painted)
5. Double click on the panel that says background to unlock it
6.  Press Ctrl + ‘D’
(The dotted line disappears, and the image looks like it used to)
7. Press Del
8. Select the Magic Eraser tool
(At this point, most of the background may disappear and leave the checkerboard pattern that denotes a lack of background, otherwise proceed to 9)
9. Click Magic Eraser on any areas that still have background
10. Make sure you save the image in .PNG format to keep the lack of background

This works best if there is a very clear contrast between the image and background, but overall it tends to work out of the box surprisingly well. If you need to see this done for yourself, there’s a youtube video showing it.

This article was posted in Resources and tagged general interest, useful.