One of the more powerful image treatment features iniWork ’ 08is the Instant Alpha pecker , uncommitted in the Format menu . Instant Alpha helps you make the background in a given ikon transparent while not changing the foreground object(s ) . Once you ’ve made the background transparent , the foreground objects can then be placed in front of dissimilar backgrounds — you could , for instance , put the Statue of Liberty in the L.A. harbor by remove its distinctive New York City screen background and then placing the image of the statue into a shot of the L.A. harbor . inst Alpha is a very wanton - to - use tool ; you just click - and - drag to selectively turn share of the scope transparent . While the final stage results wo n’t rival what you could do with Photoshop and hours of spare time , they are unremarkably quite good , especially for how quick you may make the background go away .

Given how soft it is to use Instant Alpha , you might be lure to utilize iWork ’ 08 to prepare images for function in other programs . No trouble , you figure you may just use the Instant Alpha tool , pick out the last range , copy it , and glue it into another program . And if you use Page or Numbers to create your Instant Alpha images , this will process just all right . But if you use Keynote ( which is my preference , as it ’s the most in writing of the three apps ) , you ’ll find that when you glue your copied effigy , you ’ll either get the original mental image , or perhaps the emended picture with a white setting .

Ken Drake over atKeynoteUser.comhas come up with a duet of dissimilar workarounds for this exit . First , you could replicate and paste the double to Numbers or Pages and then copy it from there to its final destination . instead , you could tally a new shape to your edited image . beak any shape you like , though the rectangle work out well , and use the Graphic Inspector to set its fill to None . Position this non - filled objective over your emended image , then select both and hit Command - C. When you switch to your destination program and paste , you ’ll see that the guileless background has been carry on .

Of course , if you desire the good results , you ’ll be using Photoshop and a lot of metre to make your setting cobwebby . But this can be a very labor intensive process , and iWork ’s inst Alpha shaft does 95 per centum of the line in about 10 percent of the time , so it ’s quite convenient to use . Just keep this piddling written matter - and - paste trick in mind if you want to take your emended image into other covering .