Question by megan:): help with GIMP 2.6 images???????????????????
ok i make backgrounds for twitter and stuff on gimp and sometimes i like to have a picture of a celebrity and erase the original background of the picture and edit it (you know put a gradient or pattern in or something like that? and i use the eraser to make it so the celebrity is the only thing in the picture but usually the outline of their body is all jagged or bumpy from me manually using the eraser and it looks unproffessional…is there any way to get the existing background of a picture im using erased automatically? is there a certain tool? or do i just have to do it myself? please and thank you! ill choose best answer soon 🙂

Best answer:

Answer by Charlie
The fuzzy select tool is what you are looking for. For me it’s in the first row, 4th over and looks like a wand (which I believe is a reference to Photoshop’s magic wand tool, I’m not a PS user). This tool will take the first pixel you click on and select all the adjacent pixels that are similar in color within a certain threshold. If you click and hold, dragging the mouse up and down will change the threshold and show you the region it will select. Just repeat this many times around the portion that you want (holding shift adds to your selection and control takes away from it) and then grab the eraser and flail wildly. Remember: if it is easier to select the portion you want to keep, do it and then go to Select -> Invert.

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