Remove White Background from an Image and Make It Transparent

Question

We\'re trying to do the following in Mathematica - RMagick remove white background from image and make it transparent.

But with actual photos it ends up looking lous

Answer 1

Perhaps, depending on the edge quality you need:

img = Import@"http://i.stack.imgur.com/k7E1F.png";
mask = ChanVeseBinarize[img, TargetColor -> {1., 1., 1.}, "LengthPenalty" -> 10]
mask1 = Blur[Erosion[ColorNegate[mask], 2], 5]
Rasterize[SetAlphaChannel[img, mask1], Background -> None]

Edit

Stealing a bit from @Szabolcs

img2 = Import@"http://i.stack.imgur.com/k7E1F.png";
(*key point:scale up image to smooth the edges*)
img = ImageResize[img2, 4 ImageDimensions[img2]];
mask = ChanVeseBinarize[img, TargetColor -> {1., 1., 1.}, "LengthPenalty" -> 10];
mask1 = Blur[Erosion[ColorNegate[mask], 8], 10];
f[col_] := Rasterize[SetAlphaChannel[img, mask1], Background -> col, 
                     ImageSize -> ImageDimensions@img2]
GraphicsGrid[{{f@Red, f@Blue, f@Green}}]

Click to enlarge

Edit 2

Just to get an idea of the extent of the halo and background imperfections in the image:

img = Import@"http://i.stack.imgur.com/k7E1F.png";
Join[{img}, MapThread[Binarize, {ColorSeparate[img, "HSB"], {.01, .01, .99}}]]

ColorNegate@ImageAdd[EntropyFilter[img, 1] // ImageAdjust, ColorNegate@img]