Every so often I need to remove a solid color from the background of an image in order to use the image with what ever background I apply. Since I don’t do this everyday I end up fiddling around with the GNU Image Manipulation Program for some time before I remember the easy way to remove the background color. I could always ask my wonderful Graphic Designer wife to do it for me, but sometimes I just like to do it myself. So this is as much of a reminder post for me as it is intended to help others who may be looking for an easy way to remove a solid color background from an image. A quick search only turned up many how-tos to remove an actual background from an image which involve masking and painstaking use of the pencil. I just don’t have the patience for this. So this is how I remove the solid colored background from an image, and replace it with a transparent alpha channel.

Let’s use The Computer Deconfuser logo as our example as it has a nice solid white background.

1. Download it to your hard drive and open it in the Gimp.
2. Right click the only layer and add an alpha channel.
3. Select all of the image.
4. Select the bucket fill and change the mode to “color erase”.
5. Change the foreground color to the one you want to remove, in our case it’s white. Make you settings look like those in the screenshot.
6. Click on the color you want to remove. The entire solid color background should have been removed and replaced with a transparent background. If not, make sure you set the threshold to the 255 max value. If your background color appears elsewhere in the image it’s likely to get removed as well. In that case just tweak the threshold until you get what you want. Now just save the new image and you it on any color background.

And here is the finished product. Notice that it’s using the background color of the page.

This is awesome. I’ve had my beard for almost a year now. So far I keep it somewhat trimmed. Over the last year I have been noticing more beards on men. I thought it was due to the same reason that once you buy a car you start to notice that same car everywhere. But this article suggests that there could be a growing trend here. No pun intended. If so, I find it very exciting. Maybe I’ll allow mine to grow a bit longer.

I’ve been wanting a recliner for a while now. The other day I decided I would look for one with a laptop stand built into it. A quick Google search turns up something from the WebTV era. Which is sad. There should have been advances in the field of mouse potatoes (I have never heard that term before) by now. I couldn’t find anything else that even came close to what I was looking for. Just a bunch of different variations of these stands that work on the bed, couch, and arm chair. So I search for lay-z-boy Explorer since that was the name of that particular model. Then I found this. Too funny! Very perplexing. Looks legit, including the logo link in the upper left. I have to admit. I thought it was real until I looked at the address bar. Very clever. If anyone is aware of a recliner for the home that also offers a built-in sturdy laptop stand please add a comment.

All day today my internet connection has been flaking out. I noticed it when I was trying to stream some music. It was choppy. I figured it was the server I was streaming from. So I tried another one, same result. I knew something was up when I tried to stream some video and it just wasn’t happening. Then I decided to check my speed over at Speakeasy Speedtest. The result made me sad.

I ran it 2 or three times before I gave Charter a call. I calmly explain the problem and the tech asks me all the standard questions. There was one in particular that she was having an especially difficult time with. The conversation went something like this:

Charter Tech: “Are you running Windows XP or Vista?”

Me: “Neither, I’m running Linux. Well…Ubuntu.”

Charter Tech: “Excuse me?”

Me: “I said Linux.”

Charter Tech: Silence…..

A few minutes pass and she’s still trying to troubleshoot the problem. She sends me to Charter’s Speedtest to test my connection.

Oh wow! They fixed it quick. Now that’s the kind of speeds I expect and pay for. She begins wrapping up the call and I decide to try another speed tester. This time it’s Speedtest’s Speedtest. I’m sad again.

Interesting. I then explain to her that I don’t trust their results. That the only speedtest that reported good results was Charter’s. Then…

Charter Tech: “Can you shut down your computer?”

Me: “Do you want me to shut it down or reboot it?”

Charter Tech: “Reboot it and hold down the F8 key then select Safe mode with networking.”

Me: “I’m not running Windows.”

We exchange some more words and I calmly try to explain to her that the problem is with Charter’s service and that I’ve already performed all tests on my end and that I’m only calling because it is occurring on hardware outside of my control. She checks for outages in NC. None have been reported. This goes on for a while. Then she puts me on hold while she discusses it with her supervisor. Then…

Charter Tech: “There have been many reports of slow connections in NC. We’ll have to schedule a tech to come out unless the problem has been resolved prior to the appointment. In which case the appointment with be canceled.”

Me: “Ok.”

Charter Tech: “Did you say you were using a Mac?”

Me: “No I said Linux.”

Charter Tech: “Can you spell that?”

Me: “L-i-n-u-x”

These first-line techs are there to prevent common people with common misconfiguration problems from wasting the time of the highly paid second level techs. But there really should be a flag in the customer database that allows certain knowledgeable customers to bypass these techs and go straight to the second tier techs. This kind of conversation is frustrating for both of us. I only want someone to tell me, “Yes, we’re experiencing problems in your area and we’re working on it.” Instead I get someone who only knows to tell you to reboot your computer and router and modem until you hit the right combo or waste enough time that the problem has been resolved. I’m expecting that the problem is magically resolved before the tech arrives on Saturday in which case that appointment will automatically be canceled.

Bad accident on 77. Be there shortly after 10.