: Gimp : How to make a selection with the current background color considered transparent? Just like in Paint, how can I do a "transparent selection"? For example, if red is the background color

@Tiffany317

Transparent selection with GIMP

Below are some possible approaches using default GIMP 2.8. without additional plugins.

Color to Alpha:

To make the background color in a selection transparent we may take the following steps:


Edit - Copy the selection
Edit - Paste the selection
Colors - Color to Alpha... choose background color


Note that in the example above the color channel for red is completely made transparent leading to a "transparency" with color shift in the grey area too. Depending on our source this may not be what we wanted.

Select By Color


Edit - Copy the selection
Edit - Paste as - New Image to work on a new image
Tools - Selection Tools - By Color Select selects all the background
Delete the selection
Select - Invert
Edit - Copy the selection
Edit - Paste the selection to our source.


Again, depending on the source image we may find it faster to apply the By Color Select tool directly on the image background, invert this selection, then copy & paste it to the destiny (or as a new image for further processing).

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