How To Make A Logo Background Transparent | No Software Required!

• March 25, 2020
• Nick Saporito
• 16 comments

In this post I’ll be demonstrating how to make a logo background transparent, and this will not require any software whatsoever! This is something that can be done entirely through your web browser, even if you’re a complete beginner who has no prior experience with design tools.

If you’re currently using a logo that does not have a transparent background then you are likely going to have trouble using it, and quite often. Ideally, a logo should retain enough versatility to be used in any possible context, and having a logo with a transparent background that can be overlaid onto any backdrop is a pillar of a versatile logo. This is something I covered in my post about preparing logo files for clients.

If the designer you hired to create your logo did not sufficiently provide you with the all of the proper file formats and variations then it would be in your best interest to reach out to them and see if they can provide that for you.

If you are unable to reach your designer, or if for whatever other reason you are stuck with a logo that doesn’t have a transparent background, then read on to learn how to make a logo background transparent.

How To Make A Logo Background Transparent

The following is a breakdown of the steps taken to achieve this task. For complete step-by-step instructions I would highly advise that you watch the video tutorial below:

The steps we’ll be taking are as follows…

• Step 1: Go to Photopea.com and open your logo using the web interface.
• Step 2: Grab the Magic Wand tool and adjust the Tolerance setting according to your logo’s specifications.
• Step 3: Click on the background of your logo using the Magic Wand tool to create a selection around your background, then press Delete on your keyboard to make it transparent.
• Step 4: Export your logo as a PNG file to retain its transparency properties and save it locally.

Let’s go over these steps a little more in-depth.

Step 1: Go To Photopea.com

Photopea is a free web-based photo editor that is very similar to Photoshop. It looks, feels, and functions just like Photoshop does, but it doesn’t cost anything and you don’t need to download it. You can use it directly within your web browser.

To open your logo with Photopea, navigate to File > Open in the toolbar towards the top of the screen, then select your logo file.

I’ll be using the following example logo for this demonstration…

The goal is to replace the yellow background with transparency.

Once you’ve opened your logo, your screen should look something like this…

Step 2: Create A Selection with The Magic Wand Tool

Next, navigate to the toolbar on the left side of the screen and click and hold on the Object Selection tool (fourth icon from the top) until the following fly-out menu appears…

Select Magic Wand, located at the bottom of the list.

With the Magic Wand tool selected, simply click on the background area of your logo to create a selection around it. The selection will be represented by a dotted line, similar to the following screenshot.

Step 3: Delete Your Background

This is the step in which we’ll be directly addressing how to make a logo background transparent. Simply press the Delete key on your board. The background should then be deleted to transparency, as indicated by a checkerboard pattern.

To make sure that the background is deleted in its entirety, zoom in on the logo by holding the Alt key and rolling up on your mouse wheel.

If there’s still some pixel remnants of the background around the edges of your logo, similar to my example above, you can undo this action by pressing Control + z on your keyboard. Press it twice to undo both the deletion of the background and the creation of the selection.

In the tool settings near the top of the page, look for Tolerance and slide it to the right to increase the area of pixels that the Magic Wand tool selects, then try again.

For my example logo I had to increase the tolerance to 126. Your needs may vary depending on your logo.

Once you’ve found the proper tolerance setting, you should be able to make your logo background transparent without any pixel discoloration around the edges. Then, you can use the Magic Wand tool to select the areas within the negative space of the letters and delete them as well.

Step 4: Export Your Finished Logo As a PNG File

Once you’ve deleted your logo’s background to transparent, you can save your work by navigating to File > Export As PNG.

It’s important that you choose the .png format because that is the format that retains transparency values. JPEG does not support transparency, therefore I do not recommend saving it in this format. Knowing how to make a logo background transparent is useless if you do not save it in the proper format.

Go ahead and export your logo as a PNG using the default setting from the Export menu. Once you click Save, your new transparent logo should appear in your browser as a download.

And that is how to make a logo background transparent without any design software! If you have any questions or run into any problems simply leave a comment below. As always, thanks for watching!

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