4 ways to remove the background of your images and 7 reasons why

You do not have to be a photoshop expert to remove the backgrounds from images anymore. There are tons of apps and tools to help and there are also tons of reasons you might want to do this. Here are 7 reasons (you will find more):

1. Product placement - After clearing the background, bring in a beautiful background using stock photos from canva.com or pixabay.com - try searching product display or flat lay.

2. Eliminate distracting backgrounds - Consider giving your artwork a clean minimalist background, even when you can't photograph it against one

3. Bring in your face - People love to put a face to the artwork. Find a creative way for them to see you while still displaying your art (or simply getting rid of a less-than-ideal background)

4. Create unique graphics (such as the smooth carousel) - Clip and place your artwork into graphics for social media and advertising. Removing the background will allow for integration of art and text for your to promote your next show or latest series.

5. Create custom "stickers" for Instagram - Instagram allows you to use their stickers button in stories to add your own photos - photos with backgrounds removed are ideal for this purpose. Watch for this capability in other social media apps in the future.

6. Speaking of stickers, create your own specialty stickers - By removing the background, you can use your art, or even just sections of your art and have die-cut stickers made via StickerMule or RockinMonkey that you can use for future promotions, give away as swag, use as gifts in your packaging or as labels.

7. Insert your art into videos - Using most video software (including iMovie, InShot, or my favorite, Camtasia), you could add your artwork as a label or graphic into your videos. The png file with the removed background is inserted as a new photo layer and doesn't block the action in the video.

Here are 4 (+ a bonus) ways to remove the backgrounds of your images:

1. Canva.com - easily my favorite way, but does require a pro account. Found in the "effects" section when selecting a photo or graphic. Save as a PNG and select the option for transparent background.

2. Photoshop, Procreate or any other image editor - use the selection tool (or lasso) to outline and then delete the unwanted sections, or better yet, cut and paste into a new layer. Unselect the other layers and save as a PNG with no background. A free tool like this is GIMP.

3. PhotoLeap (and similar apps) - these are the photo editing apps that aren't full capability but let you use all sorts of filters and lighting effects. They will have a way to remove the background automatically when in the erase tool. Delete any background layers and save as a PNG.

4. Free online background removers, like PhotoScissors, Removal.ai, InPixio and Remove.bg. These are websites where you drag and drop an image and it removes the background for you and gives you a PNG file to download. The dangers with these types of sites is that sometimes they download more than you want on your computer. Make sure you are only downloading a PNG file. I have run all of the ones I have mentioned through Norton Antivirus' Safeweb checker and they are all clear of malware.

5. Bonus - remove the background of videos using UnScreen

Special thanks to the following artists for allowing me to use their art for our Instagram carousel graphic included here.