How to Remove Background in Illustrator: Ultimate Guide (2024)

Summary: This is a post on how to remove background in Illustrator and the alternative to removing background from images online.

the before and after effect of removing image background in adobe illustrator

As professional sketching and graphic design software, Adobe Illustrator, often called ai, is used by many people as an application for drawing vector images, such as illustrations and logos.

When you start your design in Illustrator, it is great to have a transparent png as a material, because you can use it anywhere on the canvas without being troubled by the photobombers.

Now you don't have to go to Photoshop to work with image backgrounds, because you can also quickly remove white backgrounds even remove logo backgrounds you want to use with the inbuilt Adobe background remover tools in Illustrator. In this blog, you will find out how to remove background in Illustrator. Let's roll.

How to Remove Background from Image in Adobe Illustrator

There are two ways for you to make background transparent in Illustrator, check them one by one below.

1. Pen Tool

  1. First upload your image to Adobe Illustrator to start removing the image background.
  2. To make the Pen Tool work better and handle the details of your photo, you can make full use of the Zoom tool in the toolbar to remove the background of your image.
  3. Select the Pen Tool in the left dashboard, then use it to outline the image in the foreground as needed. Click along the object that needs to be preserved on the image background, and use the anchoring points generated by each click to draw an outline. Remember to click on the first "anchor point" at the end to complete the procedure.
  4. After selecting all objects, then click the right mouse button and select "Make Clipping Mask", which is a pop-up window that will remove all content outside the foreground objects in the outline.
  5. This is how you can successfully remove the background of your image in Illustrator. Adobe Illustrator offers a variety of file formats, including EPS, SVG, PDF, and much more.

2. Image Trace

Before using the Image Trace tool, you should judge that the tool can be applied to your images. For most of the simple images, Image Trace can work well. To get the best image results, you can vectorize the uploaded images in Illustrator.

  1. Open the image you want to remove the background from in Illustrator.
  2. Click on "Windows", and click on "Image Trace" in the pop-up window. You can change the settings as you need in the new pop-up window. Adjust the Mode and select "Color", then choose the number of colors according to the image you want to remove the background from. After changing the parameters, click the "Trace" button in the bottom right corner of the pop-up window.
  3. Move your mouse to select "Expand" in the top menu bar to convert your photo to a vector shape and display the anchor points of the vector part, then find the "Object" popup window with the " Ungroup" option in the "Object" popup.
  4. Next, you need to click on "View", then find the option "Show Transparency Grid" to have a transparent pixel checkerboard view to get the whole picture when you remove the background in Illustrator. When you remove the background in Illustrator.
  5. Click "Select" and move your mouse to select the part of the background you want to remove and press "Delete" on your keyboard to delete the part you don't want.
  6. Click "File" in the top toolbar and find "Save As" to save your transparent background image. You can save the image as a transparent png or other image formats you want.

Adobe Illustrator Alternative: Online Automatic Background Remover

If you find it troublesome to remove background in Illustrator, we highly recommend you use Fotor's automatic background remover to erase the image background in seconds.

Fotor web tool
Fotor

Powerful AI-driven editing tools like background remover, AI enlarger, object remover, one-tab skin retouch, AI art effects, etc.

Over 100,000+ ready-to-use templates and creative content for graphic design and photo collages.

Millions of HD stock photos for personal and commercial use.

Remove Image Background Now

Fotor, one of the popular photo editing and design software, has won over fans with its powerful tools supported by cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Fotor’s online background remover allows you to remove the background from an image in seconds, despite how complicated the image background is.

You can use Fotor’s background remover to make transparent png which is the welcomed file format as the design material. More than that, you can remove signature from image or make logo transparent instantly after uploading the image.

How to Remove Background from Image in Fotor’s Online Background Remover

  1. Open Fotor’s online photo editor, and upload your images to get started.
  2. Click “Adjust” and select “Background Remover” in the left dashboard. You can choose any mode from the two (Common Cutout or Portrait Cutout) that suits your need.
  3. Our background remover will remove background from image automatically within seconds. Still, you can the magic brush to restore or erase any want of the image background.
  4. You can change color of image directly in Fotor’s background remover or just save your transparent image in the file format you want.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have shared how to remove background in Illustrator. You can take advantage of the Pen tool or the Image Trace to make background transparent in Adobe Illustrator. Still, you can try its alternative to simplify the background removal procedure by using Fotor’s online automatic background remover to make your image transparent and save it in any format you want. Hope you find this blog helpful.