Taking Away the Background

Background Removal refers to the removal of the background or the backdrop of the picture wherein the object/objects are placed. While removing the background, the entire background or merely parts of the background we desire can be removed.

Before the popularity of digital photography and editing software the process of removing the background from an image was an incredibly laborious process.

Before the advent of digital cameras and photo editing software, the removal of a photo’s background was performed inside a darkroom with the required ambient conditions which typically included proper room temperature. The film was placed in working chemical solution and had to be monitored carefully. If you were not careful, overexposure of the film to the solution would result in an increase in background blur and decrease in resolution.

Today the removal of the background is accomplished with any digital photo editing software like GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP. GIMP is a special type of graphics editing software that is able to support some types of object-oriented (or vector) graphics.

While it is not strictly imperative that your choice of digital photo editing software be able to support all types of object-oriented graphics, the main advantage in using GIMP is that it allows for easy vector to raster conversion.

Other popularly used raster graphics editors and digital photo editors will also work just fine. Most digital photo editors have a number of plug-ins which can modify the background in different ways. Plug-ins are computer programs with highly specific purposes. Most sophisticated photo editing programs use special purpose plug-ins and will perform background editing and removal based on different criteria.

Once you have removed the background you will find that your objects without backgrounds can be used and manipulated in a variety of different ways. You can place them in a new backdrop and in different situational contexts. For example, a flower in a garden could have the garden replaced with an vase. The object can be moved around any which way and its alignment with the new background can also be changed.

The interesting thing about an object without a background is that it retains all its properties like shape and size, but makes itself more flexible to individual usage.