Got a great selfie that's ruined by a photobomber behind you? Want to take something from the foreground of one image to put it in the other? You need to learn how to remove the background in Photoshop. There are other image editing tools you can use, some free, some not, but Adobe Photoshop is one of the best out there and with a free trial, you don't even have to pay for it.

ll instructions listed below are compatible with the latest version of Adobe Photoshop CC (19.1.6). If you’re using an older version of Photoshop, some methods might not work exactly the same way, or will require a slightly different method. However, unless it’s particularly old, most should still work.

Before you Begin

• Make sure to unlock the primary layer of the image you're working on. If you don't, deleting the background can see it filled with random elements of your image. Select Window > Layers, then right-click (or tap and hold) your main layer and select Layer from background, then select OK.
• If, after making your selection, you're still not entirely happy about it, right-click (or tap and hold) the marching ants-like boundary of your selection and there are a whole host of tools to help you fine tune your selection.
• Most of the following methods use tools found in the Photoshop Tools menu. If you can't find that, select Window > Tools to activate it.

Selecting the background of an image is hard and can take a long time. The best method is to select the foreground instead and press Ctrl+Shift+I (CMD+Shift+I on MacOS) to reverse your selection.

How to Remove the Background of a Picture in Photoshop

There are a number of methods you can use to remove the background in Photoshop, though some are easier than others. The majority of them focus on selecting the background, because once you've selected it, deleting it is easy. Once you've made your selection, press the Delete key to remove the background.

It's easy to make a mistake when deleting anything in Photoshop. If you do, press Ctrl (or CMD)+Z to undo your last action. If you want to undo several commands, press Ctrl (or CMD) +ALT+Z instead, as many times as you need.

This tool works best in images where the background is clear and heavily contrasts with the foreground. It works even better if there are no transparencies or complicated edges, such as frizzy hair. It's the fourth-tool from the top in the tools Window. Use it to select the background of your image (hold Shift and continue to select additional elements if required).

If your background is a little more complex, the Lasso tool gives you a lot of control over how to select it. The standard Lasso lets you free draw your selection; Polygonal Lasso lets you draw straight lines around your selection, while the Magnetic Lasso will try to stick to the edges of an element in the image. Press and hold over the Lasso (third from the top in the Tools menu) to choose which one to use.

Make sure to draw completely around whatever you want to select to finalize the selection. You can always press Ctrl or CMD and select or tap anywhere on the image to 'close' the selection early.

The Quick Mask tool is a more hands-on and nuanced way of selecting an element of an image. It's the second tool from the bottom of the Tools bar, just below the twin color selections and looks like a greyscale EU flag.

1. Select the Quick Mask tool, then select the Brush tool from the Toolsmenu. It's eighth from the top and looks like a paint brush.

2. Using careful brush strokes, paint everything you want to select and it will turn red. You can also select the Erase tool and use it to fine tune your selection.

3. When you're finished, select the Quick Mask tool again to see your selection. Feel free to jump between both modes to finalize your selection as many times as you like.

1. Select Windows > Channel to open the Channels panel.

2. Select each channel individually and look for the channel with the greatest contrast between the foreground and background.

3. Press Ctrl (or CMD) and select the copied channel's thumbnail to select it. Invert your selection by pressing Ctrl (or CMD)+Shift+I.

4. Then, in select Windows > Layers > Add Layer Mask. It's the option third from the left in the bottom menu row.

If you can't find a Channel with good contrast, pick the best one you can find and copy it. Then use a combination of the Levels, Dodge, and Burn tools to create a greater contrast, before completing the above steps.

How to Erase the Background in Photoshop

If you'd rather not select a background to only then delete it, you can always just dive right in to deleting it yourself. There are some great tools to help you do it too.

Like the Magic Wand tool, the Magic Eraser tool can remove big sections of background with similar colors with one click or tap.

1. Select or press and hold on the Eraser tool (11th from the top on the Tools menu).

2. Select the Magic Eraser tool.

3. Select or tap any background elements you want to remove and it will delete them.

Take care when erasing around the edges of your foreground as the Background Eraser tool isn't perfect and can take away elements that you want to remain if you're not careful.

1. Select or press and hold on the Eraser tool (11th from the top on the Tools menu).

2. Select the Background Eraser.

3. In the toolbar at the top, select your desired brush size, select Sampling: Continuous (it looks like two color droppers hovering over a gradient), set the Limits to Find Edges, and set the Tolerance to 20 percent.

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4. Then, as if you were using the regular Eraser, manually remove the background.

   You can also select Protect Foreground Color to make sure to preserve elements of the foreground similar to the background's coloring.

5. You may want to fine tune your background erasing with the standard Eraser tool when finished to make sure that the whole background is removed. Zoom in close and use a smaller brush if you want to get rid of every bit of it accurately.

This article on how to remove a background in Photoshop remains one of our most popular posts, and was updated in 2018 for current Photoshop users.

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Photoshop offers many different techniques to remove a background from an image. For simple backgrounds, using the standard magic wand tool to select and delete the background may well be more than adequate. For more complicated backgrounds, you might use the Background Eraser tool.

The Background Eraser Tool

The Background Eraser tool samples the color at the center of the brush and then deletes pixels of a similar color as you “paint.” It feels like painting with acid. Let me show you how it works.

Remove a Background, Step 1: Open your Image

Start by grabbing an image that you want to remove the background from. I’ll be using this image as it features areas that range from easy removal through to more challenging spots.

Remove a Background, Step 2: Select Background Eraser

Select the Background Eraser tool from the Photoshop toolbox. It may be hidden beneath the Eraser tool. If it is, simply click and hold the Eraser tool to reveal it.

Remove a Background, Step 3: Tune Your Tool Settings

On the tool options bar at the top of the screen select a round, hard brush. The most appropriate brush size will vary depending on the image you’re working on. Use the square bracket key ([ or ]) for quickly scaling your brush size.

Next, on the tool options bar, set the Sampling to Continuous, the Limits to Find Edges and a Tolerance of somewhere between 20-25% is a good starting place.

Note: A low tolerance limits your eraser to areas that are very similar to your sampled color. A higher tolerance expands the range of colors your eraser will select.

Remove a Background, Step 4: Begin Erasing

Bring your brush over your background and begin to erase. You should see a brush-sized circle with small crosshairs in the center. The crosshairs show the “hotspot” and delete that color wherever it appears inside the brush area. It also performs smart color extraction at the edges of any foreground objects to remove ‘color halos’ that might otherwise be visible if the foreground object is overlayed onto another background.

Note: For the example image, I actually used a rather high Tolerance than the 20-25% recommended above due to the wide range of blues behind this subject.

When erasing, zoom up your work area and try to keep the crosshairs from overlapping on the edge of your foreground. It’s likely that you will need to reduce the size of the brush in some places to ensure that you don’t accidentally erase part of your foreground subject.

Remove a Background, Step 5: Choosing Effective Limit and Sampling Settings

Even though I have used a smaller brush to work around the hair and neck area, the Background Eraser has still managed to gouge a few chunks out of the hair and shirt.

For foreground image areas that share colors with the background (like this one), you may need to adjust the Sampling and Limits. In this picture, I switched over to the Sampling: Once option, set my Limits to Discontinguous and set my Tolerance to 30%.

The Sampling: Once option samples the color under the crosshair only the moment you click and it doesn’t resample as you move your brush along. The Discontiguous Limit option allows you to erase all pixels that match the sampled color that you’re erasing. This allowed me to get in between the hair strands without erasing them.

There’s a good chance the Background Removal Tool may be all you need to complete your task.

But if not, read on.

Remove a Background, Step 6: Quick Mask or Pen Tool

While removing the background on our example image is mostly straight-forward due to the fairly solid background, there are inevitably areas of our foreground subject that get wrongly erased as we work close to foreground’s edges.

In our example, the foreground and background share similar colors due to the lighting. This will be easiest to repair using Photoshop’s Pen tool. I only have a small section I need to touch up, so I’ll use the Pen to create a clean selection and delete the unwanted background.

Here’s the finished result:

Final Word

If you are working with a basic image with ample visual contrast between the subject and background, you can most likely get away with using only the Background Eraser Tool.

More complex images will likely require a mix of tools, samplings, and tolerances along with occasional manual touch-ups. There will be times when there is no visual difference between the foreground and background. We have to manually impose that distinction.

And don’t forget that if you are saving your image without adding a new background, you need to save it as a PNG to maintain the transparency.

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