We’ve been asked by Mary, one of our Snagit customers, how to remove the black color from her logo background so she can overlay the image on other colored backgrounds.

It might seem that simply replacing the black with transparency fill would do the trick. However, while the background may look like solid black, upon closer inspection, you see there is a wide range of colors in the image:

Therefore, filling with transparency gives this unsatisfactory result:

In this tutorial you’ll find step-by-step directions for turning all shades of a background color into one unified color then replacing that color with transparency.

Part 1: Change the Color Settings
First, to eliminate some of the color variations, change the image into a 16 color image. This retains the primary colors of the images but eliminates many of the color variations.
1. Choose Snagit ball > Save As.
2. In the Save As dialog box, select PNG as the Save as type.
3. Click Options.
4. Select 16 colors from the dropdown menu. Click OK.
5. Click Save.
Many of the colors variations are now gone, but not all.

Part 2: Use Color Substitution to Remove Color Variations
In this next step, Color Substitution is used to fine tune the background color. In our example, the background color will be changed to green rather than black. This is helpful for seeing all the colors that need to be changed.

1. Zoom in on the image so you can clearly see the colors to be removed.
2. Click Image tab > Modify group > Color Effects > Color Substitution. The Color Substitution dialog box appears.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Use the Old Color tool to select the color to remove from the capture.
5. Use the Color swatch to select the color to replace the old color in the capture. In this case, green is used. This is how the image now appears. Notice how clearly the color variations stand out.
   
6. Click the Add button.
7. Use the Old Color tool to select the next color to be removed from the background.
8. Use the Color swatch to select the green color to replace the old color in the capture.
9. Repeat this process as needed. For this image, it took three color additions to remove all of the color variations from the background and replace them with green.
   
10. Click Close when finished.
    This is how the image now  appears.
    

Part 3: Apply Transparency
Now it’s time to apply the transparency.

1. Select the Draw tab > Drawing Tools group > Fill tool.
2. Select the Draw tab > Styles group > Fill option > choose Transparent.
   
3. Click on the color you have set for the background. In this case, green. Immediately that color is made transparent.
   
4. Continue as needed. When all transparency has been applied, click Save.

Your partially transparent image is now ready to be used on any color background.

Do you have a Snagit capture that needs help?
Send us your Snagit graphic along with a description of the problem you need to solve and each month we’ll pick one or two Snagit transformations to showcase in this blog.
Interested? Send your images to helpmycapture@techsmith.com. We’re ready and waiting!