How to Remove Silhouettes in Photoshop

The Apple iPod silhouette commercial shows off a featureless one-color shape.

A silhouette in a photo is an outline of an object or person that shows no features. Silhouettes became a popular digital art technique after the original iPod commercials featured a dancing silhouette of someone listening to music. A silhouette is usually a dark shape made of one color. The easiest way to remove a silhouette in Adobe Photoshop is with the color selection tool, also known as the color range tool.

Instructions

1. Open the picture you want to edit in Photoshop.

2. Click "Select" at the top of the Photoshop window, and then click "Color Range..." which opens the Color Range Dialog. You see a small preview of your image in black and white with some slider bars.

3. Click the arrows in the center menu to pick "Sampled Colors" with an eyedropper next to it. Uncheck "Localized Color Clusters." Set Fuzziness to "40." Click the bubble next to "Selection" beneath the black and white preview.

4. Click the eyedropper button on the right that is the center. This eyedropper has a "+" sign and means that you add to the selection whenever you click.

5. Place your mouse cursor, which now looks like an eyedropper, over the silhouette in your picture. The color range tool picks up all colors of your silhouette and selects it with a dotted line as you click. Once the entire silhouette is selected, click "OK" to finish.

6. Press "CTRL+X" to cut out the silhouette selection or use the erase tool on the toolbox with the silhouette selected to remove the silhouette without erasing any other part of the picture.

7. Save your picture once finished erasing the silhouette.

References

• Adobe: Select a Color Range
• Adobe: Photoshop for Video - Select a Color Range