How to Make a Background Transparent in Paint

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: December 11, 2025

This wikiHow teaches you how to separate an image from its background in Microsoft Paint, using a computer. Paint can filter out the background color of an image if the background is a solid color, and you can paste it onto another picture. However, it doesn't allow you to save images with a transparent background, and any transparent areas will appear as white in the saved picture.

Steps

1
Open your image in Microsoft Paint. Right-click your image file, hover over Open with, and select Paint on the app list.
- This must be an image with a solid background color or white background.
2
Select Color 2 on the toolbar. You will have to select your image's background color as your Color 2 here.
- For example, if your image's background is white, you will have to set Color 2 to the same shade of white here.
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This will set your Color 2 selection to your image's background. Now you can separate your image from its background color.
This option is near the top-left corner. It will open a drop-down menu.
This will enable the transparent selection option in all your selections, and put a checkmark next to it on the menu here.
7
Select Rectangular selection or Free-form selection. You can find these options on the Select menu.
- Depending on the area you want to select, you can use either of these tools in transparent selection mode.
8
Select the image you want to separate from the background. Hold down the left mouse button, and trace around the image.
- You’ll see a black outline, but this will later disappear when you release the mouse.
You will see a dashed rectangle around your selection.
10
Select Cut or Copy on the right-click menu. This will copy your transparent selection to your clipboard.
- The traced image will be separated from its background.
You can paste your copied image here.
Right-click the new picture, and select Paste. This will paste the cut/copied image to the new picture, with the previous background as transparent.

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Can I have 2 homescreens on my Note8?

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Yes. You can add 2 homescreens on Note8 by zooming out and clicking Add.

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I wanted to make a transparent background, not a copy and pasted background.

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In Paint3D, you can use Magic Select. Then go to canvas and select Transparent Canvas. This will make the transparent background you're wanting.

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What if I want to crop out multiple parts in one image?

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You can use the select tool to select the parts individually and delete each of them.

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