With Photoshop you can completely clean the background of an image or make it transparent. How? Read the short steps below and watch the video walkthrough underneath.

In the video I walk through an example: imagine a photo of us taken at Taksim. We want to cut out only the part with our body and erase Taksim Square and the rest of the background. That’s exactly what the video shows.

Where Do I Use These Cut-Outs?

You can save the cut-outs as PNG and use them in any graphic design work. Why PNG? Because the background is clean / transparent, and PNG is the format that preserves transparency. If you save as JPG the transparent part will be filled with white.

Video

Quick Recap

• Open the image in Photoshop, unlock the background layer if needed.
• Use Quick Selection or the Pen tool to select the area you want to keep.
• Select > Inverse to invert the selection so the background is selected.
• Hit Delete to wipe the background.
• Save as PNG to preserve transparency.