Removing Backgrounds

I had used PowerPoint to play around with images before, but I was excited to try out unfamiliar features. For example, I had not realized you can remove the background from images using this software. For fun, I also thought I would showcase this process using the Google Chrome extension, Screencastify.

More Cats Please

The most finicky element by far was the background-removal feature. Despite allowing for some precision, the program clearly “guesses” what to remove according to what you select. I am not sure whether it uses colour values, but the tool is far from perfect. I can imagine other programs would have superior means of removing the backgrounds from images.

Nonetheless, I was able to play around enough to get this:

Catocalypse

Artistic Effects

To clean up the image, I tried a few more features in PowerPoint. In particular, I used the “Artistic Effects” tool to create a more holistic picture. The result is actually pretty impressive!

More Cats Please 2

After these modifications, the final product looks like this:

Catocalypse 2

Image Links

Please find links to the images below, as per the Creative Commons licenses:

Black Cat

Orange Cat (Right)

Orange Cat (Left)

Base Picture (including Black/White Cat)