Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Make the selected part of a picture transparent to either cleverly crop parts of the picture, or make parts of the picture transparent to overlay in front of other pictures without obscuring them.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Remove Picture Backgrounds.pptx316.5 KB Remove Picture Backgrounds - Solution.pptx
4.5 MB
Quick reference
Remove Picture Backgrounds
Removing the background from pictures.
When to use
To overlay images without obscuring objects behind them.
Instructions
- Select the picture, click the Format tab, and then click Remove Background.
- The square or rectangular marquee (used to select parts of an image) helps you focus on the part of the picture that you want to keep.
- You can Mark Areas to Keep either as a single dot or as a line drawn with the pointer.
- You can Mark Areas to Remove the background either as a single dot or as a line drawn with the pointer.
- You can delete a mark by clicking Delete Mark and selecting the mark.
- You can discard or keep all changes.
Also note:
Click the slide outside the selected image or the Keep Changes button to finalize the changes. The changes can also be undone at a later time by selecting the picture, clicking the Format tab, and then clicking Reset Picture.
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- 00:04 In this video, we start to work with images and
- 00:07 particularly the remove background tool when we work with images.
- 00:12 So let's move to a slide.
- 00:13 I have an image which is duplicated on both sides.
- 00:16 We're going to work on this particular image here.
- 00:19 As soon as I select the image, the Format tab becomes available.
- 00:24 And in the Adjust group is the remove background tool, so
- 00:27 let's click on that button.
- 00:29 Now to give ourselves a little bit more stuff to see.
- 00:33 Ctrl key on the keyboard, use the scroll on the mouse and
- 00:36 we can zoom in and we can see that PowerPoint has gone ahead and placed
- 00:40 a pink marquee over the image for the bits that it thinks that I want to remove.
- 00:46 Now it's not too bad, I can mark some areas to keep.
- 00:48 So click that button, the cursor turns into a pencil.
- 00:52 I can click a dot or if I wish, I can draw a line, a little bit of the nose.
- 00:59 And I can also mark areas to remove.
- 01:02 So a little bit of that bit there.
- 01:07 I want to keep its foot, and that foot, as well as go back.
- 01:12 And sometimes PowerPoint goes overboard and overcompensates.
- 01:19 So let's add that little bit there, that doesn't look too bad.
- 01:24 Zoom back down again.
- 01:25 So we can keep areas, we can remove areas, we can click to discard all changes, or
- 01:30 keep changes, or simply click off the image and PowerPoint goes and sets that.
- 01:35 Now you can see that it's a little bit yucky, but for
- 01:39 the particular effect that we're going to do it won't be too bad.
- 01:44 So there's one picture you can see the bounding box of that image
- 01:48 as well as this picture.
- 01:50 So click this picture, Format tab, we're going to go for an artistic effect.
- 01:55 This one which is called Plastic Wrap.
- 01:58 And I'm also going to change the color to say,
- 02:02 let's go for that color and see what that looks like.
- 02:07 That's quite dark but that will do.
- 02:11 Okay, Ctrl+A selects both images.
- 02:15 On the Format tab, this button is called the Align Objects,
- 02:19 notice I've got Align to Slide.
- 02:22 If I go Align Middle,
- 02:23 nothing happens because those images are aligned to the middle.
- 02:26 But if I go Align Center, there they are.
- 02:30 However, it appears as though the multicolored image,
- 02:34 that has a transparency around it, is obscured.
- 02:38 And that's because PowerPoint can have multiple images or objects in layers.
- 02:45 So if I right-click on that top image, send it back.
- 02:50 Now, I can send it backward one step but let's send it right to the back and
- 02:54 there the other image appears.
- 02:57 Now it's got a little bit of a halo around it, if you like that that's fine.
- 03:01 Otherwise we can actually re-edit this particular image now that it's in front.
- 03:07 Go back to the Format tab, remove background and
- 03:10 we can work on that a little bit further.
- 03:12 And that's not a bad effect.
- 03:15 So remember the remove background tool on the Format tab with the image selected,
- 03:20 Remove Background.
- 03:22 There are areas to keep, areas to remove.
- 03:24 You can discard all changes and start again,
- 03:28 which is what happens if I click that, Ctrl+Z to undo.
- 03:32 Have a look at the file that's available.
- 03:34 It's quite a nifty little tool.
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