How to remove image backgrounds using powerpoint 2010

By: Waseem Patwegar

Windows 10 comes with its own stock of Desktop Background Images and also allows users to upload their own Desktop Background Images. However, do you know how to delete desktop background images in Windows 10, in case you wanted to?

Delete Desktop Background Images in Windows 10

As you must have noticed, right-click does not work when you try to delete system desktop background images that already exist on your computer.

Similarly, you will not be able to right-click and delete external images that you may have uploaded and used previously as desktop background images on your computer.

Hence, we are providing below the steps to delete both System and Uploaded Desktop Background images in Windows 10.

1. Delete Desktop Background Images (System Images)

In Windows 10, system desktop background images are stored in “Wallpaper” Folder which can be easily accessed using the File Explorer on your computer.

1. Right-click on the Start button and click on File Explorer .

2. On File Explorer screen, navigate to C:\Windows\Web and double-click on the Wallpaper Folder.

Note: You can also access the Wallpaper Folder by typing “ C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper ” in Windows search bar.

3. In the ‘Wallpaper’ folder, you will see other Folders containing System Desktop Background images.

4. To delete any System Desktop Background image, simply right-click on the image and click on the Delete option.

The selected Desktop Background image will be deleted from your computer.

2. Delete Desktop Background Images (Uploaded Images)

If you had set an external image as Desktop Background, the image will be located in the same location from which you had set the image as desktop background.

You should be able to find the external desktop background image in common download locations like Pictures, Downloads, Library or somewhere on the Desktop.

If you are totally lost and unable to find the location of the desktop background image, you can follow the steps below to locate and delete the desktop background image.

1. Open Settings on your computer and click on Personalization .

2. On the Personalization screen, click on Themes in the left pane. In the right-pane, you will see the Name of the desktop image under “Background” section (See image below).

3. Type the Name of the desktop background image in the search bar and you should be able to see the Location of the image file and will be able to access the file by clicking on Open File Location option.

4. Once you reach the Image File Location, right-click on the image and click on Delete option in the drop-down.

If the image that you just deleted is your current Desktop Background Image, you will continue to see the same Desktop background, until you Switch to another Desktop Background Image.

To switch to another Desktop Background image, go to Settings > Personalization > Background > and select your New Desktop Background Image .

Jul 11, 2009
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If you need to include an image without its background in Word document or Powerpoint presentation and are not familiar with Photoshop or any other image processing tool, then there is no need to fret. Background Removal Tool in Microsoft Office 2010 can do it for you. Among the long list of enhanced features in Microsoft Office 2010, there is Background Removal Tool . Removing the background of any image is now only a couple of clicks away.

First of all insert any picture into your document from Insert > Picture option.

Once you have inserted image , Picture Tools will be displayed automatically as shown in following screenshot. Now, locate Background Removal tool under Picture Tools. Click Background Removal tool and the background for the particular image will be removed as show in following screenshot.

Wasn’t that easy? For more, also check out our previously covered tip on taking screenshot with Office 2010. Enjoy!

9 Comments

Super! I have been looking for an easy way to do just this, however, how may I convert this to a jpeg so that I may insert it in to an eBay listing for instance. Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers!

I wish that you people would learn to speak actual English on these freakin sites…or else just speak your own language…I’d rather not understand you anyway.

English is my first language and I understood them fairly well they cant see the picture in the article.

Maybe you should get an education before you start complaining about not being to understand someone else you moron.

I can’t see some picture in this article.

I am forever indebted to you for this informiaotn.

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In PowerPoint you can remove the background of any image by using the background removal tool. This can be quite handy for anyone who want to integrate a particular photo with color background in the PowerPoint template with the corporate identity. In the following article we will explain how we can use Mark Areas feature in PowerPoint to control how to remove the desired background color without affecting the image or picture in the front.

How to Remove Background in PowerPoint 2010 using Markers

For this image we have used a free vector character available for download in VectorCharacters. From this website you can download free business characters to decorate your presentations with a unique style.

However, if you don’t have Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator and want to use a picture like the following businessman with a suit case over a white background, you will find that the background do not match with the dark texture used for the slide.

So we start using the Remove Background feature under Picture Tools -> Format. Then click Remove Background. You will notice that the menu will change its buttons and now you can choose between:

• Mark Areas to Keep. Use this tool to add markers over the area that you want to keep.
• Mark Areas to Remove. On the other hand, you can explicitly mark areas that you want to remove.
• Delete Mark. If you added a marker by mistake, you can use this tool to delete certain marks.
• Discard All Changes. Use this button to start over.
• Keep Changes. When you are ready with the selection, click here.

The trick here is to use Mark Areas to Keep and then begin clicking over the picture on these areas that you want to keep in your image. In the example you can see that by default the Background Removal tool will remove the teethes and that’s a bad idea.

Example without using Mark Areas to Keep.

And here is the same example but this time using markers.

In this course:

Powerful apps for productivity, connection, and security

Here is how to crack open a deck to remove backgrounds, which may include a theme change or removing backgrounds from the master slide.

If you can’t remove a background, it may be part of a theme. On the HOME Tab, click the Layout button to see what the slides look like.

You can change a theme by going to the DESIGN tab and mousing over the different designs. The Office Theme is the simplest with a blank background.

Want more?

For our last video, we will talk about removing backgrounds in PowerPoint.

Most of the time when people want to remove backgrounds, it is because they were given a deck, or they inherited a deck, maybe.

Well in this example: this Charity Ball & Auction, let’s say this is last year’s deck. I am in-charge this year and I want to clean up the deck a little bit to give it a different look.

Now is this a background I can change?

It’s not a solid background. Now one clue is, you look at the left-hand side. In all those slides, the backgrounds look the same with that stripe. And if I click under Layout, you can see all the slides. They are all themed, so this is a theme I am dealing with, not just a solid background.

So to change the theme, I go up to DESIGN.

And, really you could change it really quickly right here, you can. You see what you just put your mouse over each look.

You can see what it looks like. It changes everything. But, I am going to just use a blank presentation. So, let me do that.

And, use this one here, this Office Theme. It changes the fonts a bit, but it keeps the text, it keeps the pictures, and I can start with a fresh background. Now, pictures here.

Look, this main picture here that I want to change.

Now watch this when I click on it.

As soon as I click the picture, I get this box around it. That selects the picture.

So now, I can move it around, or I can just simply delete it.

Now let me go down to this.

Let’s say this company doesn’t own us anymore.

So I want to get rid of this logo.

I click on it, but there is no box. Nothing happens.

The reason, and if you have been watching the videos you know, it is because this image is not on this slide. It is on the Slide Master.

So, I have to go in there to delete it. So let’s go up to VIEW, and click Slide Master.

And now the left-hand side is no longer my presentation. There are all the Slide Masters.

And as you can see in the bottom right-hand corner, there is a logo in each one of those slides.

So let me go to the very top on this big master slide, and there it is.

So, let me click on that to select it. And now on the right-hand side, I am going to choose this.

Again, anything on this main slide will be on all the other slides.

So if I go down here to the logo and click it, I get the box.

So now, I have selected it and I can simply delete it.

In fact, let me show you that again.

If you look on the left-hand side of the thumbnails as soon as I delete it, it’ll disappear from all the slides.

When I am done, click Close Master View, and now, I am back.

I have a very clean background and for me, I am ready to build the auction. The Charity Ball & Auction for this year, new backgrounds, new pictures, and you know what?

I’m going to invite you to come along.

So, you’ll be going to the Charity Ball this year.

You can remove a background from a picture to accent the subject or to remove distracting detail.

You can use the automatic background removal or draw lines to indicate the areas to keep and remove.

Background removal isn’t available for vector graphic files, such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Adobe Illustrator Graphics (AI), Windows Metafile Format (WMF), and Vector Drawing File (DRW).

Same picture with the background removed

Select the picture that you want to remove the background from.

Select Picture Format > Remove Background, or Format > Remove Background.

If you don’t see Remove Background, make sure you selected a picture. You might have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab.

The default background area will be colored magenta to mark it for removal, while the foreground will retain its natural coloring.

If the default area isn’t correct, go to Background Removal > Picture Tools and do one or both of the following:

If parts of the picture that you want to keep are magenta (marked for removal), select Mark Areas to Keep and use the free-form drawing pencil to mark the areas on the picture that you want to keep.

To remove more parts of the picture, select Mark Areas to Remove and use the drawing pencil to mark those areas.

When you’re done, select Keep Changes or Discard All Changes.

To save the image in a separate file for later use, right-click the image and select Save as Picture.

You can apply an artistic effect or add picture effects to the picture remaining after you’ve removed the background.

Select the picture that you want to remove the background from.

Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, select Remove Background.

Click one of the handles on the marquee lines and then drag the line so that it contains the portion of the picture that you wish to keep, and excludes most of the areas you wish to remove.

You can sometimes get the result you want without any additional work by experimenting with the position and size of the marquee lines.

Tip: To undo marked areas, select Delete Mark and then select the line.

If the default area isn’t correct, go to Background Removal > Picture Tools and do one or both of the following:

Select Mark Areas to Keep and use the drawing pencil to mark the areas on the picture that you want to keep.

Select Mark Areas to Remove and use the drawing pencil to mark those areas to remove.

When you’re done, select Keep Changes or Discard All Changes.

To save the image in a separate file for later use, right-click the image and select Save as Picture.

You can apply an artistic effect or add picture effects to the picture remaining after you’ve removed the background.

Remove the background of a picture

Select the picture.

On the Picture Format tab of the ribbon, select Remove Background.

If you don’t see Remove Background or the Picture Format tab, make sure that you’ve selected a picture. You might have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Picture Format tab.

The default background area is colored magenta to mark it for removal, while the foreground retains its natural coloring.

If the default area isn’t correct, under Picture Tools, on the Background Removal tab, do one or both of the following:

Select Mark Areas to Keep and use the free-form drawing pencil to mark the areas on the picture that you want to keep.

Select Mark Areas to Remove and use the drawing pencil to mark those areas to remove.

When you’re done, select Keep Changes or Discard All Changes.

To save the image in a separate file for later use, right-click the image and select Save as Picture.

Formatting Pictures

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Lesson 14: Formatting Pictures

Introduction

Once you’ve added pictures to your presentations, you can format them in various ways. The picture tools in PowerPoint 2010 make it easy to incorporate images into your presentations and modify these images to make them look even better.

In this lesson, you will learn how to change the picture style and shape, add a border, crop and compress pictures, and add artistic effects.

Basic image formatting

Have you inserted a picture onto a slide that you want to trim or make appear smaller on the slide? Perhaps you’d like to add an artistic effect or border to the image to make it stand out from the slide’s background. You can use PowerPoint’s picture tools to help you modify the picture style and shape, add a border, crop, add artistic effects, and even compress pictures.

Optional: You can download this example for extra practice.

To crop an image:

1. Select an image. The Format tab will appear.
2. Select the Format tab.
3. Click the Crop command. The black cropping handles appear.

Corner handles will allow you to simultaneously crop the image horizontally and vertically.

To crop an image to a shape:

1. Select the image. The Format tab will appear.
2. Select the Format tab.
3. Click the Crop drop-down arrow (below the Crop command). A drop-down menu will appear.

You may want to crop the image to the desired size before cropping it to a shape.

To add a border to a picture:

1. Select the picture.
2. Select the Format tab.
3. Click the Picture Border command. A drop-down menu will appear.

Image adjustments

To make image corrections:

1. Select the image. The Format tab will appear.
2. Click the Format tab.
3. Click the Corrections command. A drop-down menu will appear.

You can also select Picture Corrections Options from the drop-down menu to refine the settings.

To adjust the color in an image:

1. Select the image. The Format tab will appear.
2. Click the Format tab.
3. Click the Color command. A drop-down menu will appear.

You can also select Picture Color Options from the drop-down menu to refine the settings.

Artistic effects and styles

To apply an artistic effect:

1. Select the picture. The Format tab will appear.
2. Click the Format tab.
3. Click the Artistic Effects command. A drop-down menu will appear.

Many clip art images do not allow you apply artistic effects. Generally speaking, the ones that look hand-drawn or painted do not work, while photographs do.

To apply a picture style:

1. Select the picture. The Format tab will appear.
2. Select the Format tab.
3. Click the More drop-down arrow to display all picture styles.

Compressing pictures

You’ll need to monitor the file size of your presentations that include pictures, especially if you send them via email. Large high-resolution pictures can quickly cause your presentation to become too large, which may make it difficult or impossible to attach to an email. In addition, cropped areas of pictures are saved with the presentation by default, which can add to the file size. PowerPoint can reduce the file size by compressing pictures, lowering their resolution, and deleting cropped areas.

To compress a picture:

1. Select the picture. The Format tab will appear.
2. Select the Format tab.
3. Click the Compress Pictures command in the Adjust group. A dialog box appears.

Removing the background from an image

Removing the background from an image can give the image a cleaner appearance and will allow the slide background—or other objects—to show through. If you’re printing your presentation, it can also save ink.

About Background Removal

With Background Removal, PowerPoint uses special algorithms to determine which parts of the image are the background and then removes these areas from the image.

To remove the background from an image:

1. Click the image. The Format tab will appear.
2. Click the Format tab.
3. Click the Remove Background command.

As with artistic effects, Background Removal will not work with some clip art images.

Use PowerPoint’s built-in background remover

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What to Know

• To remove a solid-color background: Select the picture and go to Picture Tools Format >Remove Background.
• To make a single color transparent: Select the image and go to Picture ToolsFormat >Color >Set Transparent Color.

This article explains how to remove the background of an image in PowerPoint, making that portion transparent. Instructions apply to PowerPoint 2019, PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2013, PowerPoint 2010, PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2016 for Mac, and PowerPoint for Mac 2011.

How to Use PowerPoint’s Background Remover

When the background in a picture is a solid color, it’s easy to remove the background so that only the main image appears in the picture. This allows text, a picture, or another color to show and is a way to blend your photos into the slide background seamlessly.

Open the PowerPoint presentation and go to the slide with the image to which you want to apply a transparent background.

Select the image. A new tab, Picture Tools Format, is added to PowerPoint.

If you have multiple images on a slide and can’t select the one you want to work with, right-click any pictures that are on top of it and select Send to Back to temporarily move them out of the way.

Go to Picture Tools Format and select Remove Background. In PowerPoint for Mac, go to Picture Format and choose Remove Background.

PowerPoint colors the image pink to indicate the parts that it thinks is the background.

To customize which areas of the picture are kept and which are made transparent, choose either Mark Areas to Keep or Mark Areas to Remove to designate parts of the photo that should remain or be deleted. Then, draw a line around the area on the picture.

In PowerPoint for Mac, use What to keep or What to remove.

Select Keep Changes to apply the edits.

Sometimes, the image ends up with more or less transparency than you’d like it to have. If so, just repeat the steps above. PowerPoint saves all your changes and even lets you revert back to the original, non-transparent version.

To save the edited image to use elsewhere, right-click the image and select Save as Picture to save the picture with the transparent background on your computer.

Make a Single Color Transparent

There is another way to make a solid color in the image transparent. For instance, you can make a white background see-through.

Select the image and go to Picture Tools Format. Mac users need to press Picture Format. In Mac 2011, it’s called Format Picture.

Select Color to display a list of color variations and choose Set Transparent Color.

Mac 2011 users must choose Recolor first, and then Set Transparent Color.

Select an area of the picture that is the color you want to make transparent.

Removing objects from a picture or deleting a solid color works best on images that are made up of simple colors, like clip art or cartoon-like photos. Photos and other complex images with multiple objects and similar color shades are difficult to edit in this way.

Over the years, I’ve posted hundreds of tutorials using PowerPoint. Some of them to be updated. Today I am going to cover five ways to use PowerPoint as an image editor. This is great for quick image editing or for those who don’t have other image editors on hand.

Save PowerPoint Content as an Image

Since we’re talking about PowerPoint as an image editor, the first tip is that whatever you create in PowerPoint can be saved as an image.

I usually group the objects so it’s one group. And then I right-click and save as picture. I like to save as a .PNG so that the transparent areas of the image are still transparent. If you save as .JPEG, the transparent areas will become white.

In the image below, I used PowerPoint to create the sandwich stack and then right-clicked to save as picture.

Create Custom-Sized PowerPoint Slides

You can make a PowerPoint slide any size you want. By default, they’re 16:9. That and 4:3 are the most common aspect ratios. However, by going to the Design Tab you can set the slides to any size. That means they can be tall and skinny or short and wide.

Why would someone want to do that? Check out the tip below.

Export PowerPoint Slides as Images

PowerPoint slides can be saved as images. That means you can add whatever you want to a slide, layer content, etc and then save that slide as an image. I do this quite a bit when I need to quickly build graphics for my e-learning courses.

For example, the flashcard interaction in Rise is a 1:1 aspect ratio. So I make a PowerPoint slide that is 1:1 and add my content to the slide. It’s a great way to add titles and images to the flashcards to make them visually richer.

Once I’ve completed the slide, I save the PowerPoint slides as images and insert them into the Rise interaction.

The images above were all created in PowerPoint as slides and inserted into the Rise course. You can see an example of the PowerPoint slide images in this demo course.

Using PowerPoint slides to create images is easy and it gives me more control over the images I use in my e-learning courses.

How to Extend a Photo’s Background

Sometimes you have images where the object is centered which makes it challenging to place other content on the screen. An easy way to fix this is to cut a slice from the image and stretch it. This lets you move the main object over and get some empty space for text or other content.

I also use this technique to quickly build slide layouts which I showed in this previous blog post on how to create a template from a single image.

• Tutorial: here’s a PowerPoint tutorial where I show two ways to extend the image: one where it’s really easy and one where the image doesn’t quite cooperate.

How to Remove the Backgrounds of Images in PowerPoint

Since PowerPoint 2010, you can use PowerPoint to remove backgrounds from your images. For the most part, it works well. Select your image and the remove background. You can select areas to keep and areas to remove. Once you’ve removed the background, you can play around with softening the edges to get rid of any obvious jaggedness.

As you can see, PowerPoint is a great tool for building simple illustrations or using it for quick graphics editing.

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.

Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs

Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills

Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.

Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Microsoft Office is among the most widely used Office suites, which is commercially available. Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the best software which you can use to make an effective presentation as it offers you a variety of tools to achieve this task.

So let me tell you one simple tip to increase the effectiveness of your presentation with your images, by removing their background.

Remove background of image using PowerPoint

Many times while working you feel that you have got the best picture that can be used for your presentation, but you feel that you cannot use it because it has an inappropriate background or it does not go well with your presentation.

I have seen people who use Adobe Photoshop which provides them with a Magnetic Lasso tool to freely select the portion of the image, and then they remove it. But let me tell you can do the same stuff with a lot more simplicity.

To remove background in PowerPoint, follow these steps:

1] Open your Microsoft PowerPoint

2] Go to Insert tab and select Picture

3] Now select any Picture whose background you want to remove. Just for the sake of simplicity, I am selecting the Penguins picture.

4] To increase the look and feel of the image I am changing the picture style and shadow style. Use them to increase the effect of images.

This is the image of whose background, I will be removing.

5] Select the Remove Background tab from the Picture Tools.

You will find a window asking you to Mark areas to keep, Mark areas to remove, etc.

6] Select Mark Areas to Keep. A Pen will come through which you can select the areas one by one.

7] Click on Keep Changes to get the image with the removed background.

The quality of the final image with the removed background will highly depend on the areas you selected and the precision and accuracy you had.

Date: April 18, 2018 Tags: PowerPoint

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Harsh Mahajan is a Microsoft Student Partner. A technology enthusiast at heart, he has a tremendous passion for emerging technologies & trends like Cloud Computing & Windows Azure. He is associated with the International .Net Association as Brains Unleashed leader.