Dealing with Stock Images without Transparent Backgrounds

[Marley C.]

Hello All!

I am ready to pull my hair out. I am looking for simple vector images in Stock, and every single one I license and download has a white background. I have tried opening them in illsutrator soI can just remove the white background, but when they open in illustrator, they do not have layers and are flat images. 

I find it silly that I can't just easily remove the background from the little vector right in illustrator, but as much as that annoys me, I also tried to bring it into photoshop to remove the background. The simple background remover in the properties window did not work well - despite the fact that it's a very clean vector with sharp lines, it still cut off half the image trying to remove the background. 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated! It's silly to think my old version of Microsoft Publisher removed backgrounds so quikly and easily (I know, *gasp*) and here I am with a state of the art design program that requires I take an hour to trace lines to remove the background of an image.........

Someone please tell me there is a better way than this??

[WendellaBee]

Hi @Marley C. ,
Are you downloading the file as a jpeg or a vector? If you download the file as a jpeg and then open it in Illustrator you will not see any layers and will only see a flat file. If you download the file as a vector you'll be able to manipulate the layers.

When you open the vector in Illustrator you'll be able to edit the layers.

Let me know if I've misunderstood your issue.

[Marley C.]

Thank you for the quick reply!

I did download it as a vector file, but it still did not allow me to manipulate layers. Might have just been an odd one that didnt have that? Not sure.. I'll definitely try that again next time. If it opened in layers, which I've done before, it's easy enough to remove the other layers for sure.

[WendellaBee]

What file was giving you trouble, could you give me me the asset number? I can take a look at it.

[Marley C.]

Ahh I wish I would have kept it set aside! I had an ad to submit so I just ended up picking another one, moving it into photoshop and removing the background with the magic eraser tool. I'll keep that in mind next time I'm having problems though!