When people make a professional looking presentation, they generally want everything to be presented properly. You don’t have to do everything yourself these days. There are websites like FPPT where you can get a nice looking template that suits your presentation. You can also get free to use images for your presentation.

However, what happens when you insert your chosen image in your presentation slide?

GIMP -- Remove Background - Cover - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

This is probably not the result you were looking for.

The ‘white box’ is visible and there’s really no way to make it disappear from within PowerPoint. Since this image is not a vector or a transparent PNG, it does not have a transparent background. But, we can fix that by using a free and feature-rich image editing software called GIMP.

GIMP -- Remove Background - Cover - 2 - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

This is a tutorial on how to remove the background from an image using the free picture editing software GIMP. The aim is to demonstrate how you can remove background from a bitmap image that you want to use in your PowerPoint presentation. These images may have file extension .jpg .gif .png (non transparent), etc

How To Remove Image Backgrounds Using GIMP?

Here, we will be removing the background of an image by using the Fuzzy Selection tool.

You can download and install GIMP from their official website by clicking here

GIMP -- Installation - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Go to File and click Open. Choose your image to open it in GIMP

I have added a subtle grey colored background to the image instead of the white background it previously had.

GIMP -- Remove Background - 2- PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Click the Fuzzy Select tool from the toolbox on the left side of the screen

GIMP -- Remove Background - 3 - Fuzzy Select Tool - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Click an even colored area on the image and then wait for it to process. Soon, you should see “marching ants” type of line around your main image

GIMP -- Remove Background - 4 - Fuzzy Select Tool - 2 - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

The image that you wish to keep should be in the “marching ants” line. If you’re having trouble with this, then click here for a more detailed tutorial

Add Transparency to the image by clicking Layer, Transparency, Add Alpha Channel

GIMP -- Remove Background - 4 - Add Alpha Channel - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Now, press the Delete key on the keyboard to delete the background. It should look something like this

GIMP -- Remove Background - 5 - Delete The Background - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Give The Image A Smooth Outline

You can save the image now, but it will have jagged edges. You can make the jagged edges smoother by following these steps

Click Select and then click Grow

GIMP -- Remove Background - 6 - Select - Grow - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

We can add a Blur effect to the edges of the image by clicking Filters, Blur, and then Gaussian Blur as shown below

GIMP -- Remove Background - 7 - Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates.png

Finally, we can save the image by clicking File, and then Export As

GIMP -- Remove Background - 7 - Export - 2 -- FreePowerPointTemplates

Make sure to choose to save as PNG and uncheck Save Background color, then click Export to save the image as shown here

GIMP -- Remove Background - 7 - Export - 3 -- FreePowerPointTemplates

Now, when you export the image in PowerPoint, it should look like this

GIMP -- Remove Background - Cover - 2 - PowerPoint - FreePowerPointTemplates

Good Luck! and please share if you found this helpful 🙂