Hi, it’s Angela Wills here from Marketers Mojo.

You might not remember me, but a few years ago I guest blogged here at Clicknewz with an article called Outsourcing and Hiring a Virtual Assistant. Well I’m baaack but this time I’ve got graphics advice for you DIY business owners and/or service providers who want to help out clients with a really useful (and free tool).

In today’s post I’m going to show you the best way to remove an image background if you’re on a budget and in a hurry. Sound good? We’ll be using Lynn Terry’s fabulous picture from Low Carb Traveler as an example…

Don’t panic! This tutorial won’t require you to spend hundreds in photoshop or spend hours learning how to operate a complicated program. In fact, this tutorial is going to show you how to use a program that rivals Photoshop (but it’s free) to remove the background from any picture or graphic you like within minutes.

Remove a Background From a Picture

Now the fun begins! Here’s the original picture I want to work with:

Step 1: Get Gimp (It’s FREE!)

Download Gimp for free here: http://www.gimp.org

First, click that orange download button once you get to the main page:

That will take you to the download page where you’ll need to click the link that looks like this:

Sorry to Mac users, but Gimp is available in Windows only.

Step 2: Open up Gimp, Your Graphic and the Layers Toolbar

After you’ve downloaded and installed your new toy then you’ll need to click on that little Gimp mascot buddy and open it up.

Next you need to do the typical ‘File’ > ‘Open’ action to open up the image you want to edit. In this case we’re editing Lynn’s picture I showed you above.

Step 3: Outline & Cut Out Your Image

In this step you need to click on the ‘Paths Tool’ so you can outline your image. Use the mouse to click point by point around the part of the image you want to keep. Go all the way around the image and make sure to join up the first and last points to complete a full path right around the piece to cut out (kind of like using a scalpel to cut around an image you want to cut out of a piece of paper).

For Lynn’s image, I’m going to make the picture bigger so it’s easier to see what I’m outlining. You can do this to by clicking on ‘View’ > ‘Zoom’ > then pick your zoom setting

Here’s what it looks like now:

Once you’ve outlined your image and you are happy with it your next step is to hit ‘ENTER’. This will outline the image and you’ll see that it’s ready to be removed from the background.

After you click enter your image should start to flicker a bit and be outlined. Next all we need to do is just click on ‘Edit’ > ‘Cut’ and you will remove the image.

Now you can paste it anywhere you like!

Step 4: Adding Your Image To a Background

To send Lynn to some really cool places I opened up three images and pasted in the cut out. Here is the result of this quick edit (remember, the more time spent on the Paths tool, the sharper it will be):

Lynn Terry at Niagara Falls and Stonehenge

Lynn Terry at the Sphynx and The Great Wall of China

Pretty Cool, eh?

You can do a lot more than that with Gimp, but this should keep you busy for a start.

Ok so you now know how to make Lynn show up anywhere in the world – what do you do with this information?

You can:

• Add your professional photo to an ecover.
• Crop a picture to add to a website header.
• Crop ugly backgrounds out of an otherwise great bio picture or headshot.
• Isolate product pictures to add to your salespages.
• Draw a mustache on your least favorite GURU (male or female) .

More Resources for Graphics With Gimp

I’ve also created a video on the best way to remove a background from an image in Gimp. I’d like to invite you to access the video AND a bonus, free Q&A webinar that I’ll be hosting to answer your questions on how to use graphics to make more money with your business.

It’s all available when you sign up for my video course, Gimp Graphics Mojo.