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Participant
August 9, 2025
Answered

HELP!!! How do I remove the white area of my image?

  • August 9, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 455 views

Ok, I hate Illustrator and prefer Photoshop. Everything in Photoshop just makes more sense in my brain, but I need a vector conversion of a raster image so I can import it into Cinema 4D. I used the image trace tool to create the vector paths, but while the PNG version that I imported had a transparent background, Illustrator turned into a white plane behind my white shapes, and I can't figure out how to delete it, so that all I'm left with are my vector shapes. I tried separating them by the Release to Sequence Layers and moving them out of the layer. I also tried creating a new layer with a black rectangle and subtracting it. Nothing seems to work! What do I have to do? Every time I import into Cinema 4D, that plane gets imported as well.

Correct answer Jacob Bugge

Falco,

 

You can Expand the Live Trace, then with the Direct Selection Tool select one of the white paths, then in the Select dropdown click Select>Same>Fill Color, then pres Delete.

 

Or you can start over and use either of the following Image Trace options, see HelpX page below where you use Search to find the terms:

 

Outline   : Simplifies the image to black outlines.

 

Transparency: Prevents the transparent background in the image from being traced as white.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/image-trace.html

 

1 reply

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Jacob BuggeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 9, 2025

Falco,

 

You can Expand the Live Trace, then with the Direct Selection Tool select one of the white paths, then in the Select dropdown click Select>Same>Fill Color, then pres Delete.

 

Or you can start over and use either of the following Image Trace options, see HelpX page below where you use Search to find the terms:

 

Outline   : Simplifies the image to black outlines.

 

Transparency: Prevents the transparent background in the image from being traced as white.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/image-trace.html

 

Falco4077Author
Participant
August 9, 2025

Ok. Did that, but I still see a while plane behind my shapes.