I am needing some help in removing the background from an image that I have. I don't know how to post the image on here.

As Monika mentioned, if you have to do it in Illustrator you may draw a clipping (compound) path and create a clipping mask.

But due to the lacerated parts of the flags, the drop shadows and the metallic splinters, you may soon be pretty frazzled to do it this way.

One can do it in Illustrator, but basically Illustrator is not the right tool for the task. It is rather Photoshop or some other raster graphics editors. Some are provided as open source applications.

Gimp, for example.

Alan,

I am sorry, but the new forum software moves in mysterious ways. After the reply was accidentally sent before it was finished, I tried to amend it but was signed out as many have tried, and have only just succeeded in returning to this.

As I (mis)understand it, you wish to get rid of all the red and white, including the parts in between the parts of the actual artwork.

The red part is easy because it is separate from everything else.

The white part is a quite demanding task, not least the worn parts of the banner to the left, unless you only wish to get rid of the fully white parts and leave the shady transitions, which share colours with some of the actual artwork.

Is it only the pure red and white, or also the shadowy transitions?

Those transitions look like blur that could just be removed if you had the original document (where the red and white parts could just be deleted).

When you say that you only have Illustrator, if you have a subscription the difference is surprisingly little.

Maybe a nimble way of using Image Trace could be part of the solution.

Alan,

Have you tried starting on this in Photoshop?

You can:

1. remove most of the white with the Magic Wand with
2.