How To Remove White Background from Logos in Photoshop
734K views 14.6K likes 401 comments
Jump to a step in the video (9)
Click a time to play the video from there.
Your choices stick across every tutorial on this device.
Learn to remove white background from Logos in Photoshop using channels and Apply Image!
This simple technique will help you make backgrounds transparent in just a few minutes using Channels and Apply Image.
Key Takeaways
- A white background already gives you a hard tonal edge, so the Channels panel is the fastest place to build the selection.
- When no single channel is clean enough, duplicate the best one and combine it with another using Image > Apply Image set to Multiply.
- A Levels adjustment on the duplicated channel drives the logo to black and the background to white, which sharpens the edge and cleans up compression noise.
- Invert the channel, then hold Ctrl (macOS: Command) and click its thumbnail to load the logo as a selection.
- Rebuild the logo from Solid Color fill layers instead of erasing pixels, so every color stays editable and the background stays transparent.
Table of contents
Keyboard Shortcuts for This Technique
| Action | Windows | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| Invert the duplicated channel | Ctrl I | Command I |
| Load the channel as a selection | Hold Ctrl and click the channel thumbnail | Hold Command and click the channel thumbnail |
| Reload the logo selection from a fill layer | Hold Ctrl and click the layer mask thumbnail | Hold Command and click the layer mask thumbnail |
| Make the brush smaller or bigger | Left and right bracket keys | Left and right bracket keys |
Duplicate The Channel with Most Contrast
To easily remove white background from Logos in Photoshop you can use channels.
With channels, you can create selections, and since the background is white it creates a well-defined edge with the logo making it easy to select.
Start by analyzing your logo in the Channels panel. Look for the channel that has the most contrast between the background and the logo.
Once you determine which channel has the most contrast duplicate it by dragging it into the New Channel icon.
In this example, no one channel has a complete advantage over another.
With the Red channel, everything looks great except for the orange design in the center.
With the Blue channel, everything looks great except for the text.
If you have a similar issue, then follow the next step for the best results.
Use The Apply Image to Combine Channels
If no channel has more contrast than another, then duplicate the best channel of the three. In this example, I duplicated the blue channel because, for the most part, the logo has a lot of contrast against the white background, except for the text.
Then look for the channel that compliments the missing pieces from your selected channel. In this case, the Red channel has a lot of contrast in the text.
To merge these channels together, select the Blue channel copy, and go into Image > Apply Image. From here, select the Red Channel from the Channels dropdown.
Then Change the blending mode to Multiply to darken the image.
Then Press Ok.
Notice that the duplicate channel now has a logo that is almost black!
Fine Tune the Channel
Now you can use the Levels adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Levels) to fine-tune the channel.
Move the black point slider to the right to make the dark pixels black, and the white point slider to make the bright pixels white.
Doing so will create sharper edges and remove the JPEG Compression.
Create a Selection from The Mask
Now that you have a black and white version of the logo, make sure to invert the channel. Press Ctrl I on Windows or Command I on macOS to invert.
The background should now be black and the logo white.
Hold Ctrl (macOS: Command) and click on the duplicate channel thumbnail to load it as a selection.
Create a Solid Color Fill Based on The Selection
With the selection active, click the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Solid Color.
From the Color picker select black and press OK.
This will give you a black and white version of your logo without a white background!
Adding Color To The Logo
To add the color to the Logo, first, enable the logo selection again by holding Ctrl (macOS: Command) and clicking the Solid Color fill layer’s mask thumbnail.
Then select the Eyedropper tool, and select one of the colors from the original logo. Like the dark gray from the tree branches.
Next, create another color fill layer. It will automatically select the color you clicked on and you can press OK without adjusting the color.
From the Toolbar, select the Brush Tool and paint with black on the layer mask in areas that should not have the dark gray color.
Repeat this process on all the other colors to get the final result!
This is one of the best methods to remove the white background from Logos in Photoshop!
Sample Image
Download tutorial image here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Open the Channels panel, duplicate the channel with the most contrast between the logo and the white, push it to pure black and white with Levels, invert it, and load it as a selection. Then build the logo from Solid Color fill layers so the background stays transparent.
Click through the Red, Green, and Blue channels and pick the one where the logo separates most cleanly from the white. Drag that channel onto the New Channel icon to duplicate it, so the original color channels are never altered.
That is common with multicolor logos. In this example the Red channel handles the text well and the Blue channel handles the artwork, so neither one works alone. Combine them with Apply Image instead of settling for the better of the two.
With the duplicated channel selected, Image > Apply Image blends a second channel into it. Multiply keeps the darker of the two values everywhere, so the dark parts of each channel add together and the logo ends up almost solid black while the background stays white.
Photoshop loads white areas as selected and black areas as deselected. After Levels the logo is black and the background white, which is backwards, so press Ctrl I on Windows or Command I on macOS to flip it before you load the selection.
Erasing bakes the result into pixels. A Solid Color fill layer carries the selection as a layer mask, so the logo color and the mask can both be changed later, and the area outside the mask stays genuinely transparent.
Reload the logo selection from the first fill layer’s mask, sample a color from the original artwork with the Eyedropper, and create another Solid Color fill layer. Then paint black on that layer’s mask to limit the color to the right shapes, and repeat for each remaining color.
Selections and Masking Mastery
Complete course includes 2.5 hours of step-by-step lessons, 6 structured modules, downloadable practice files, and custom Photoshop brushes. Everything you need to master selections and masks in one place.
Keep going
Channel-based selections are one corner of a much bigger skill. My Selections and Masking Mastery course covers the rest.
And if you are new here, subscribe on YouTube for a new Photoshop tutorial every week.
Related Links
If you enjoyed this tutorial, make sure to follow PTC on YouTube! And if you create something using this tutorial, share it on social media with the hashtag #PTCvids for a chance to get featured!
Final Image
Drag the slider to see before and after
