Nov 20, 2014

If you have a picture that you want to insert into a Microsoft Office document that is perfect except for the photo-bomber or other unwanted content in the background, you can remove the background and just keep the part of the picture that is of interest. The Remove Background tool appears in the Ribbon in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, when a picture is selected. How well it works does depend on the picture. You can edit what the program considers to be the background, so that only the bits you really want are kept. Automatic Background Removal When a picture is selected and the ‘Background Removal’ tool is clicked, the program attempts to identify the background and shades it pink (see picture #2 in the example below). Manual Background Removal The next step is to use the white squares to extend the box that defines the image area to be kept (see picture #3 in the above example). Then, to add or remove other parts of the image, the Mark Areas to Keep and Mark Areas to Remove tools enable you to mark, with a line, sections of the image that do or do not need to be kept (see picture #4 in the above example). Once the background has been established, the Keep Changes tool applies the changes and the background is removed (see picture #5 in the above example). So there you go, that’s how you remove a background from a picture!