I want to have a photo of a guy printed onto a T-shirt. The thing is, I just want his body transferred onto the shirt, minus any background that is in the photo.
So, I opened the image in Photoshop, used the pen tool to roughly select the area around the body, then cut the selected area out. So far, so good. Next, I used the eraser tool to carefully erase any remnants of background from the image.
So, what I have now is the guy against a plain black background. If I convert that to a JPG, the black background will still be there. Don’t want that, just want the guy with no background at all.
I’ve obviously missed a step in the process. How do I get rid of the black rectangle background and leave just my guy as my image?
Set your background to white, before you erase.
If you want NO background, you can set that instead, but jpg doesn’t support transparency (I think Jpeg 2000 does, though).
Duplicate the layer. On the duplicate layer use the magic wand tool to select your black background. Clear the selected background. (Trash the bottom layer) you should now have your image on a transparent background.
Save as a file (listed above) that supports transparency.
CafePress has very clear instructions on how to do this from scratch on Photoshop in order to print images on dark backgrounds.
PSD is the best option, if your print shop accepts it. Next best would probably be PNG. I wouldn’t use GIF for a photo–they are meant for logos and graphics with only a few colors.
What method is being used to reproduce the image on the shirt? Heat transfer? Silk screen? Etc. I only ask, because silk screening would require color separations, and half-toning or at least posterizing.
Also, is the shirt white, black, or another color?
ETA: If it’s cafe press, nvmd, just follow their directions noted above.
