Looking for an easy way to remove a background of a picture without photoshop?
In this video you’ll discover how to make a background transparent online for free. My favourite app (even as a designer) to remove a background from an image is using Canva’s free background remover tool. The best part? It will literally take you less than 8 seconds to do.
Looking for great *designer-approved* images for your next project? Check out our free cheat sheet with our top 5 FREE stock photography sites:
Video link: https://youtu.be/t1HQPiNdYCY
Vitina (00:00):
Have you ever needed to remove a background of an image? If you haven't tried, it can be pretty hard, it can be pretty tricky, especially with the outdated information and tutorials out there. And especially if you're a non-designer, you probably don't want to invest in expensive designer software. So in this video, I'm going to show you a free and easy way to remove a background in literally, under eight seconds. The software is friendly for non-designers and I'm going to show you how to do that. But before we get to that, if you do not want to miss out on cool hacks and ideas to grow your business, please be sure to hit the subscribe and notify buttons now.
Vitina (00:44):
I'm Vitina. I am the co-founder of Brand Therapy Sessions. And in the last 12 years as a designer, one of the most common questions that I get from clients, even some from our students, is, "Vitina, how do I remove a background?" And this used to require the skills of a designer and lots of fancy design software and expensive software at that. But this day and age, there are some pretty awesome tools online that you can use. And in today's tutorial, I'm going to show you how to remove a background using Canva's tools. So why don't we head over to my computer?
Vitina (01:21):
So the first thing that you'll want to do is sign into your Canva account or create an account if you haven't done so already. Now, in order to use Canva's background tool, you do need to have a pro account. And you might be wondering, "Vitina, what the heck? You said that this is for free." If you don't have a pro account, don't worry. You can sign up for Canva's pro account for free for 30 days and use the background tool. This isn't an ad. If you don't like it, or you won't be using their tools often, make sure to cancel your account after you finish removing your background. And on the plus side, Canva will remind you when your free trial ends.
Vitina (02:02):
In Canva, we can remove backgrounds of three types of images. First being a person, next is an object, and last is a landscape image. There are certain things you'll need to look out for when deciding which images you actually want to use to remove a background. Some are definitely going to be easier than others, and we'll go over that in each example. I did, however, create a cheat sheet with my favorite free stock photography sites. If you want access to that, you can find the link in the description below.
Vitina (02:37):
First, I'm going to show you how to remove a background from an image of a person. I'm going to show you two different examples here with different types of backgrounds. One will be a lot simpler and easier, and the next will have some disruptions in the background. So the first thing that you're going to do is go up to the top right corner here and click on, create a design. And you'll click on, start with an image. And you'll choose whichever image that you're going to use. You'll find the folder and click, open here.
Vitina (03:15):
You have two options. One will be to edit the image directly, and the next tool will be to use it in a design. And what you'll want to click on is edit image. Once you click on edit image, it will open in a new page. And as you can see in this first example, that the background is very, very clean. Having a really clean background with no objects disrupting in the background of the person's arm, or the leg, or around these leaves will make it a lot easier to remove this background.
Vitina (03:53):
So the first thing that you're going to do is go up to the top left corner here and click on effects. And this panel will open. There's lots of cool things that you can do in Canva. We'll do that in separate tutorials in the future, but for now let's click on background remover. And as you can see, in under eight seconds, my friend, that this background will be removed. And there you have it. As you can see here, even just how neatly cropped it is between the leaves, all of the complicated sections here, even in the hair, Canva did a really awesome job.
Vitina (04:37):
So as you can see, with a clean background this can be super simple. Now, the next image I'm going to show you is right here. It's an image of a woman doing yoga and her dog. And as you can see, her hair is overlapping with the window panel and you can see that there's some books and outlets, and yeah, there's just a lot going on. So we're going to do the same thing. And I'm going to show you a little trick here, because you never know what is actually going to be removed. So let's use this tool one more time.
Vitina (05:30):
So as you can see, it did a really good job removing pretty much everything other than the woman and her trusty friend here. But let's just say for instance, that you did want to keep her yoga mat in. And you can see here if we zoom in, that there is a little extra piece of hair that's not the dog's sticking up. So let's clean this up. So the first thing I'm going to do is actually select the erase button. And I'm going to make this a little bit smaller. And I'm just going to go in here and clean that up. Now let's zoom out. So what I'm doing to zoom in and out is command plus and command and the minus button, or you can simply go down here and click zoom in or zoom out. Great.
Vitina (06:37):
So now you're going to click on show original image, just so we can actually see where the yoga mat is. And so in this case, instead of erase, you'll want to click on restore. And to start, I'm going to make the brush size a little bit larger until we are hitting the edges of the yoga mat, but I will just start painting in the actual mat here. I'm going to show this to you super quickly. So the edges are not going to be as perfect as I'd like, that I think is the perfectionism of a designer. But I just want to show you this so you can get what is possible. Let's make this a little bit smaller. I'm going to go along the edges here and let's just finish up right there. Perfect. And let's just say I was happy with that, all I would do is click done. And let's just see, that looks great.
Vitina (08:05):
In this next example, I'm going to show you how to remove a background from an object. In this case, I've chosen this image. It's pretty clean in the background. And let's just say, I want my focus to be the croissant and the plate. Now, sometimes we don't know with Canva what they will actually remove. So let's click on background remover and just see, but we always have the erase and restore buttons if we do actually need them. Ah, there we go. So I got exactly what I wanted. In this case I wanted the plate and I wanted the croissant. So there you have it, removing a background of an image. I am curious, comment below and tell me what types of images you want to edit.
Vitina (09:00):
Now, in this last example, I'm going to show you how to remove a background from a landscape image. So I've already gone ahead and uploaded this image here. And as you can see, there's quite enough contrast between the sky and the silhouette of the rock formation. So I'm going to go ahead and click on background remover. I think even these little crevices here were captured by the background remover. That is awesome. If something like that happened and it wasn't removed, you could go in and use the erase tool and just make the brush super tiny to get into these small areas.
Vitina (09:49):
You've now learned how to remove a background from an image, but where do you get great images? Well, don't you worry, I have you covered. I created a cheat sheet with all of my favorite sites to get free stock photography. If you want access to this list, click the link below this video and I'll send it to you directly. This is a great resource if you're looking for beautiful stock photography and you need it pretty fast. This resource will be constantly updated. We love to keep it fresh around here, so you'll be the first to know of any new and additional resources that we add to that list. Now, if you enjoyed this video, please be sure to click the thumbs up button below and subscribe to our channel.
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