How to remove image background using GIMP

This tutorial shows how to remove background in a jpg image using GIMP-GNU Image Manipulation Program. GIMP can be found in any Linux distribution including Ubuntu desktop and Slackware Linux. To open GIMP in Ubuntu desktop, click Applications - Graphics - GIMP Image Editor. Here is an example of how GIMP looks like:

Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program

You can use Gimp menu File - Open to open the jpg file that you want to remove the background. See the example screen shot below:

Open jpg image from GIMP screen shot image example

Browse and select the jpg image from the directory in your computer. Select the jpg file and click Open. See the example screen shot below:

Browse jpg image from from your computer screen shot image example

Here is the jpg image example. We are going to remove the white color background and make the image transparency.

A jpg image example

To remove the background color from the image, click Layer menu and choose Transparency. In the Transparency menu, choose Color to Alpha. See the example screenshot below:

Remove the background color from the image screen shot example

You can see the result below. The white background color has been removed from the jpg image.

Color to Alpha screen shot image

Now we need to save the image (you can edit the image later if you want). Click the Gimp File menu and choose Save As.... See example screen shot below:

Save the new image

Name the image as filename.png. We must change the '.jpg' extension to '.png' extension. Change the location to where you want to store the new image.

Change image file extension

When you click Save, a new pane pops up. Click 'Save' again and you are done.

Save the image as png extension

That's all.

This page is very nice but

This page is very nice but the final image may not be what we want, specially if we want to make an icon on a dark background. Actually, this put everything in transparency. Another method would be as follows:
- open gimp on the image
- click layer->transparency->add alpha channel
- click tools->selection tolls->fuzzy select in the menu (or press U) then click on a background region, then click edit->cut in the menu (or press CTRL-X)
- iterate if necessary until all background regions has been removed
- save the final image
This works well if the image has a uniform background and a clear frontier between the background and the image itself.

Thank you very much. These

Thank you very much. These works for me:

- click tools->selection tolls->fuzzy select in the menu (or press U) then click on a background region, then click edit->cut in the menu (or press CTRL-X)
- iterate if necessary until all background regions has been removed
- save the final image

thx, very helpful if you

thx, very helpful if you don't know how to do it.