How to Change White Pixels to Transparent in Photoshop Elements 6

Clip art can be very useful.

Creating a website often means marshaling all your possible resources. On of these might be the many sites that offer free clip art that you can use. By browsing though these images, you might be able to find some that are perfect for your particular site. Unfortunately, you may occasionally find an image that you would like to use that is not in GIF format. This means that if you use it, you will have a white square surrounding the clip art if you place it on your page. Fortunately, this is a fairly simple thing to fix using Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.

Instructions

1. Download the clip art graphic you want to use to your computer by right-clicking on the image and saving it, or by downloading a file if the site offers the image that way.

2. Open Photoshop Elements 6. Select "File" from the menu and click "Open." In the dialog box that pops up, browse to the image you loaded in Step 1 and open it.

3. Go to the "Layers" panel on the lower right and right-click on the background layer. From the options that pop up, select "Layer from Background."

4. Go to the toolbar on the left and select the "Magic Wand" selection tool. In the options at the top, set the selection mode to "Contiguous." Click on an area of the white you want to select. Hold down the shift key and continue selecting the areas of white you want to get rid of.

5. Hit "Delete" on your keyboard. This will remove the white pixels, leaving a transparency around the clip art.

6. Select "File" and click "Save for Web." In the dialog that pops up, choose GIF as the file type and click "OK." Name your file and click "Save."

References

• Adobe: Select an Area with the Magic Wand