Expert: Amy - 2/14/2008

Question
I'm working in Illustrator 10 and I have a question on images. How do you take the white background off an image whether it be an eps or tif or ai.

Answer
Hi Sharon,

The only time a white background is an issue is when the data is rater data. Any object that's vector can simply be deleted.

If you place a raster (photoshop, jpeg, tiff, etc) into an AI document, it is not converted into postscript... it's still raster art and the whites cannot be assigned "transparency." The white background has to be "hidden" with a vector object that can be "transparent." The only exception being 1-bit black and white line art saved as bmp or tif.

If you are new to AI or your artwork is very complex, creating masks might be hard, but you can draw a clipping mask over your artwork to mask out the white areas.

Use your pencil or pen tool to draw a CLOSED path over the white areas of your artwork. This can be difficult depending on the complexity of the artwork. Then select the artwork and the new path and choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make. The area hidden by the mask will not print.

If you have PhotoShop, it's a lot easier to create a clipping mask using PhotoShop paths. There are instructions for creating clipping masks in PhotoShop all over the internet, so I won't try to explain it here. Basically, you'll be selecting the white areas with the magic wand tool, turning that selection outline into a path, saving the image as an EPS with the path data "attached" and import that EPS into  Illustrator. You can then tweak the path using the direct select tool.

This is usually what a graphic designer will do for more complex images that need transparency using the tools you've got at your disposal.

Good luck!
Amy