How to convert solid color to transparency?

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I have a simple black and white image. I want to remove the white background and make it transparent. There are some intricate parts so the magic wand tool won’t work for me in this case. Is there a way I can select a color and remove it (making it transparent)? Here’s a sample of the image:

black and white image example

I’m currently using Pixelmator, but have access to Photoshop. Also, I would think all of these programs would have a similar tool for doing this, but I’m not familiar with it.

Answer

Pixelmator

If you would like to make a white background transparent, you can use the “Mask to Alpha” tool. However, this tool assumes that the dark part of the image is what you want to make transparent. You will first need to invert the color so that the white is turned black:

Menu > Image > Invert Color

Then you can convert the black to transparent:

Menu > Filter > Color > Mask to Alpha

Update June 2018: The menus have moved around a little bit since the last time I tried this. Now the menus are as follows:

  1. From the Image menu select Color Adjustments...
  2. From the panel, double click on Invert
  3. At the top of the panel is a drop down menu. Select Other.
  4. Double click on Mask to Alpha.
  5. Go back to the Color Adjustments panel to Invert the image back to black.

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Andrew , Answer Author : Community

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