Cutting out the same bg color per layer can be tedious so i remembered Ofnuts small tutorial on removing SOLID bg colors by
1) Add alpha channel
2) Select by color
3) grow by pixels needed to remove all color
4) utilize Color To Alpha to make selected color TRANSPARENT within ONLY the selected area.
5) Remove selection
SEE POST #4 for new added feathering update to script.
This works excellent so i scripted it for quicker use.
SCM is attached -
Menu location is Rod>Remove Photo Object BG Color

Dialog has 2 values for input
1) Color to choose to make transparent
2) Grow Selection by how many pixels

Example image


After running filter with these settings




If i would have used a larger pixel growth on the selection all the blue color would have been removed. So i hope this helps someone out there.

Thank you Ofnuts for the idea.

Let me know if you have any bugs or issues with it.

Rod, your script is so useful. It was a dream I had if it was possible to do and you did it!
Thank you so much

You are very welcome. I hope it helps you in the future. I will probably add feather selection to it as Ofnuts did mention feathering the selection also. I will keep you updated on that.

Thanks Issabella.

Actually it was pretty easy to just add it now. The filter is updated to 1.1.
Added "Feather Selection"

The above works well if the background is a solid colour eg if created by vector graphics. Take for example an item photographed against a background colour and saved as a jpg. There will be significant variations in the background colour.

A more useful workflow is:
1) Add alpha channel
2) Select by color
3) Delete background
4) grow by pixels needed to remove all color
5) utilize Color To Alpha to make selected color TRANSPARENT within ONLY the selected area.
6) Remove selection
Deleting the background takes care of the variations in background colour.

There is a problem with this method... when you delete you also include some pixels that should have been processed by Color-to-Alpha, so a more proper technique would be:

1. Select background, and save to channel
2. Select>Shrink by 2px and delete
3. Restore saved selection
4. Select>Grow by 2px and use Color-to-Alpha

This uses a saved selection because growing by 4 pixels something you shrunk by 2 can be different from growing the original by 2.
A script could also evaluate the average color of the background and use that in Color-to-alpha, instead of requesting it from the user, so once you have a selection no parameters are needed and the script becomes significantly faster that the manual method.

No, nay , never(*)... Of give me a link, I must have been drunk.

(*) it is completely against the principles of that technique.

I created this script to do just that. Remove a single solid color. If you want to add features like remove different colors from bg be my guest.
You can however keep re running the filter (SHIFT + CTRL + F) selecting bg colors for multi color backgrounds.

I am getting old and forgetful Ofnuts so perhaps i am wrong about your mention. It does however seem to work a little better with Feather so i will leave it in.

How would i do that?
Would "blur>pixelize" the entire image work?

Nope tried it.

Thought about this over breakfast, and implented it together will Blighty's suggestion. See here

Thank you sir.

installed and used to create from these



this one


nice, Rod!

Those came out beautiful.
Glad it was helpful.

You are welcome Dalia.

Rod, your filter works wonderful! Thanks with flowers

The result is in transparency. PNG

Thank you Issabella. That looks really nice.

Does this script work in 2.10.20 in Windows 10?

Works OK in 2.10.19 Ubuntu appimage. Best to use it on logos but results will vary on other images.