How to remove a white background with the Remove White plugin

By
Svein
– October 14, 2007Posted in: Software, Tutorials and tips, Webtips

Remove_white.pngIf you use Photoshop to isolate objects from their white background, you might have heard of a small plugin called Remove White.

I used it back in the days of Photoshop 5 and really loved the way you could lift out any object from the white background with a click. If any pixel was not completely black, it would be partially transparent. This meant that soft shadows could be lifted off as well, something I have not been able to do with any other method so far.

But this plug-in does not work with Photoshop CS2 and I have been trying to find a newer version for a long time. Until recently when I stumbled across a way to run older plugins on newer version of Photoshop.

First of all – the Remove White plugin is as far as I know, made by Mark McLaren and you can find it here (scroll down and click on Remove White under Mark McLaren). Unpack the filter and put it in your filter folder.

But since it is an older type filter, you need an extra file to make it work. You need to add msvcrt10.dll (click here to download it) to the same folder as the Photoshop program. Do not add it to the system32 folder or anywhere else in the main Windows folder as it might interfere with how other programs work.

Reboot Photoshop, and it should start with no problems. You should now have a new category of plug-ins at the bottom of your filter list called Mac’s with a single filter called Remove White.

To apply this filter to an image, you first have to either duplicate the background layer and do it on the copy, or double-click on the background layer and turn it into a regular layer. If you want to apply this to just a portion of your image, you have to make a selection first, otherwise just choose the Remove White filter and you are done. You should now see the checkered background through the parts of your image that is not completely black.

To verify that the extraction is ok, make a new layer and fill it with white. Then place this layer under the image layer. You image should now look like it was before you removed the white background.

Most people do not like to have a transparent main object, so you need to make a quick mask of your object, fill it with white and place it under your main image layer. But you now have the option to exclude shadows so that the shadow will fall on whatever background you choose for your picture.

This is an effect that is simply not possible by using a mask or doing a selection based on color.

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About Svein

After living in Norway for over 40 years, I have moved to Brazil. I still sometimes travel to Norway to work, but aim at making those trips shorter and shorter. My worklife has been spent in the professional broadcast area. I have been doing regular production, both recorded and live shows. And I have been working for one of the major suppliers of editing systems, Avid Technology. The last few years I have done a lot of training and teaching. It is a very rewarding kind of work and no two days are the same. I also spend some time hacking together websites and tell people about the benefits of having websites with content management systems - CMS and lately also about the advantages of Linux. My preferred flavour is called Kubuntu.