0:02 So, in this video, I'll show you a
0:03 method to get the background removed
0:06 from graphics like these. Whether it's
0:08 the howling at the moon or the very
0:10 popular bootleg style. If you want to
0:12 create these kinds of designs with AI,
0:14 you always have a massive problem with
0:15 the background. There's just too much
0:18 like fog, details, and differences in
0:20 the background color. And I've tried
0:22 these with with everything. So,
0:24 vectorizer, if you throw them into here,
0:26 it just, you know, it leaves a lot of
0:28 black behind. It ruins the gradient. So,
0:31 that doesn't really work. Remove.bg,
0:33 also doesn't do a good job. This is a a
0:35 color removal much like Photoshop, which
0:38 it it looks okay, but it still has, you
0:39 know, all of this foggy
0:42 half-transparency left behind. Tools
0:44 like ClipDrop as well. This is the kind
0:45 of stuff that's built into Kittle and
0:47 other tools you might be using. They're
0:49 probably using either ClipDrop or
0:51 Pixian, remove JPEG, stuff like that.
0:53 These just absolutely fail with these
0:55 graphics. Let's see if it's finally
0:56 going to do it right here. Come on.
0:58 Yeah, okay. That's terrible. It's just
1:00 taken off most of the graphic right
1:02 there. And even in Photoshop, you know,
1:04 with the magic wand, it's not a great
1:07 result. And if you use the the automated
1:10 method here, remove background, it also
1:12 fails. But there is actually way to do
1:14 this. It's a manual method, right? So,
1:16 it's not something that I think you'll
1:19 be able to automate. But if you have
1:21 some designs that you, you know, you
1:22 really want to do a good job on, you
1:24 want them to print well, and you you
1:25 really want them to be in a bootleg
1:27 style or this howling at the moon style,
1:29 then this is the go-to method, I think.
1:31 And it unfortunately only works with
1:33 Photoshop. I tried this with Photopea,
1:35 but I I couldn't figure out how to do it
1:37 in Photopea instead. So, maybe there's a
1:40 way, but right now, I only know
1:41 Photoshop. So, let's start a new
1:43 document right here. And by the way, you
1:46 should upscale your image first if it's
1:49 not at at least 4,000 pixels already. I
1:52 downloaded this one with a 2K. It was a
1:54 nano banana image. So, in that case, I
1:57 only need to scale it by 2x. You can use
2:00 upscale for that. Or another free option
2:02 would dgb.lol.
2:05 And what I'm going to do is set this to
2:08 the print file dimensions and 300 DPI.
2:10 That is very important. So, whatever
2:12 you're going to have the design printed
2:14 at, use that in terms of the dimensions.
2:17 And also choose 300 DPI. Then we'll go
2:19 and hit create. Then I'll open up my
2:22 design here. I will resize it so it
2:24 actually covers the print area more.
2:26 Don't get it cut off at the edge right
2:28 here, but you want to fill in this space
2:30 and make it the right size before you
2:32 start the process of removing the
2:35 background right here with a halftone
2:36 method. This is kind of a halftone
2:38 effect that can remove the background
2:39 more effectively. And so, now it's
2:41 resized. The next thing we're going to
2:43 do is head to the layers panel. If you
2:45 don't see that, just go to window and
2:48 enable layers. And we'll right-click on
2:51 this uh design. Go to duplicate layer.
2:54 Change this to a new document right here
2:56 and then just hit okay. And once that's
3:00 opened up, we will go to image, mode,
3:03 and grayscale. We just hit rasterize for
3:06 this. And now we can start the process.
3:08 So, what you need to understand for this
3:10 workflow is that whatever is black in
3:13 your design is going to be removed
3:16 fully. And whatever is completely white
3:18 will be printed fully. Anything in
3:21 between, so anything that has gray will
3:23 have a halftone effect applied to it.
3:24 And that way there's no
3:27 half-transparency. There is kind of a
3:29 mixture of little dots that are going to
3:30 be printed out, which looks way better,
3:33 way cleaner. But right now, most of this
3:35 is gray. There's not really a lot of
3:37 white. So, almost all of this would be a
3:39 halftone effect and wouldn't look very
3:40 good. So, what we're going to do is
3:42 select the design in the layers panel.
3:46 We'll go to image, adjustments, levels.
3:49 And then we'll drag this slider very far
3:51 down. And this will depend on your
3:53 image. So, you you don't want to blow up
3:55 all the way that, you know, your graphic
3:57 completely disappears. But you also want
3:59 to go quite a bit higher than what you
4:01 might perceive as natural right here.
4:04 So, I think this is actually quite good.
4:06 And it might look like it's way too
4:08 bright and shiny right here, but we'll
4:11 also slide this layer back for some of
4:13 the edges, the foggy edges, so that the
4:14 black is going to be increased right
4:16 here. If we turn this up a bit, there we
4:19 go. I think this looks kind of good. If
4:21 we hit okay and zoom in, we'll now have
4:23 some gray at the edge right here, where
4:25 it's kind of halftoning. Anything around
4:28 right here black is going to be the
4:30 shirt color, so it won't be printed on.
4:33 And the bright white, that will be solid
4:36 color. So, this is a decent result. And
4:38 we can now move on to the next step. So,
4:41 next up, you need to click on image
4:44 again, go to mode, and select bitmap.
4:47 Click okay for flatten layers. And make
4:49 sure that the method right here is set
4:52 to halftone screen. Output should say
4:55 300 DPI. If it doesn't, then you need to
4:57 go back to step one and and restart the
4:59 document. And then click okay. And for
5:01 the halftone screen, these are the
5:03 settings that I've got. You can play
5:04 around with them. This decides the kind
5:07 of size of the little halftone effect,
5:09 that the dots that you're going to get.
5:10 And we can also change the shape. I've
5:12 just left that at the default. So, 20
5:14 and 1/2 and 40 up here. And then we'll
5:17 just click okay. And now you will see a
5:19 noticeable difference in the graphic. We
5:21 zoom in, you've now got that actual
5:24 halftone kind of dotted effect. Here,
5:25 everything is solid. That's where we had
5:29 white. And anything around it is black.
5:31 There's no half-transparency.
5:34 And now, what we can do is go back to
5:36 the layers panel right here. We'll hit
5:39 control A to select everything. Then
5:42 we'll hit control C. It's command on a
5:45 Mac, by the way. So, command A, command
5:47 C to copy. Then you'll need to head back
5:49 to your original document with the
5:51 colored version of the design. You need
5:53 to head to the layers panel. Click on
5:55 this little symbol down here to create a
5:57 layer mask. Now you need to hold down
6:00 alt if you're on a PC or option if
6:02 you're on a Mac. And then click into the
6:04 layer mask, which will look white like
6:06 this. And then we're just going to hit
6:09 control V or command V to paste that
6:11 into here. And as soon as you click out
6:13 of it, you'll now see a halftone mask
6:14 applied to our original design, which I
6:16 did upscale beforehand, by the way. So,
6:18 I would recommend upscaling it before
6:19 you start this process and not doing
6:21 this with a thousand pixels in terms of
6:24 your graphic. And now, this has done a
6:26 really, really good job, which you can't
6:28 really see on white. But if we change it
6:30 to delete this layer and then change it
6:32 to a solid color background, black right
6:35 here, this looks really good. And it's
6:37 going to actually print well, look
6:39 professional, and it won't have any
6:40 weird half-transparency effects in
6:42 there. Now, you might have to get used
6:44 to the the slider with the levels
6:46 adjustment right here, just to get used
6:49 to how much you need to show or color in
6:51 white and how much should be black, etc.
6:53 I don't think I've I've done a perfect
6:54 job right here, but that's something
6:56 you'll get used to. And I know it's a
6:58 bit of a faff and a bit annoying that
7:00 this only works with Photoshop. There
7:01 might be another tool that can do this.
7:03 I just don't know of it. So, if you're
7:05 aware of another way to do this right
7:07 here, let us know in the comments down
7:09 below. Oh, and by the way, after this
7:12 stage, you would go to file, export,
7:15 export as PNG. And then you'll get your
7:16 design file right here. Now, that might
7:19 be quite a large size, like 20 megabytes
7:22 is this one right here, 22 actually. So,
7:23 you might have to run it through Caesium
7:26 afterwards to get that size down, but at
7:28 least you've got a really neat-looking
7:30 design. And this also works with bootleg
7:32 as mentioned. So, just to summarize the
7:34 steps here again, you want to first of
7:36 all have your image upscaled to at least
7:38 around 4,000 pixels. Then you want to
7:41 create a document at the right print
7:42 size, wherever you're selling it,
7:44 whether it's Amazon Merch or Etsy. And
7:46 make sure you know what those dimensions
7:48 are and 300 DPI. Then you want to
7:50 duplicate your design into a new
7:53 project, apply the grayscale mode, then
7:55 apply some levels to create a higher
7:58 contrast in in your white and your dark
8:01 areas. Then you want to create a bitmap
8:03 with a halftone effect. You can then
8:07 copy that project and paste it into a
8:09 layer mask in your original project to
8:11 the original design. And then all that's
