Are you curious about green screening?  Do you lose too much time looking for the just-right graphic to work in presentations for teachers and students? Me, too!   All too often, I find a graphic that I like; however, it has a colored background on it.  Why is this a problem?  Check out the image below: a soft yellow background with an hour glass for time.  That blue square around the hourglass is ruining the look.     Thankfully, I don’t need to worry about it anymore and neither do you.  I recently discovered remove.bg, a site that removes backgrounds for free. Neither you nor your students need to create an account, so you don’t have to worry about data collection on your students or whether or not this is a 13+ app. Here’s what the site looks like.  

            Notice the drag and drop or upload feature on the opening page. While there is a Login/Sign up button in the top right, this is not necessary to use the site. If you do not login, your picture will not be saved and will only be downloaded to your device.  

Before and After

When I drag my hourglass image anywhere onto the webpage, it automatically removes the background for me. I didn’t have to do anything else. The simplicity of this site makes it usable by K-4 students through adult. This is what I see after the site does its job.  Remove.bg removed the blue background leaving the transparent checked background.

   

What If Too Much or Not Enough is Removed?

If I am happy with the image, I can download it. If too much or not enough of the image is erased, I can hit the Edit button. Once in the edit window, I can choose the thickness of my tool, choose erase or restore, and work to make the image exactly what I need. Here is a view of the edit window in Restore.bg. With a simple swipe of the restore tool, I restored the bottom background and word “hourglass.”  

Here is a view of the “Erase” choice in the edit window. Notice how I was able to erase the orange sand in the top half of the hourglass.  

 

Final Product

Now, I can insert the transparent background image to my slide for a much more professional look.  

 Slide with transparent image background.

  Technology is becoming more and more user friendly. This is especially important for teachers in the classroom who want to increase creativity without sacrificing time from content.  

Green Screen

If you are wondering whether this software removes backgrounds for green screening, it most certainly does. Check out this selfie with my living room in the background. Now I can embed myself into any digital environment available to me.    

 

Here I am in someone else’s graduation photo!

Here I am in a background from remove.bg!

    Please, leave a comment letting me know what you think of this free graphics tool. If you use it yourself or with students, please stop back and let us know in the comments section, or post it on social media and tag me at @EFPTech and/or @CultivateLearn. Enjoy!