Problems Pasting a PNG: How to Fix it in Photoshop

If you have tried to paste a PNG from the Internet to Photoshop by copying the image, you will see a black background appear. That is, you copy the image that you have seen on the Internet by pressing the right button and “copy image”. When you paste into the editing program, instead of leaving the transparent background you get a black background.

Why does the black background come out?

This black background instead of transparency has an explanation: it is not your fault or Adobe‘s fault but it is a problem on the Windows clipboard. When you right-click and “Copy Image” or “Copy a PNG,” Windows automatically discards transparency information by storing it on the clipboard. Once you paste it, it appears with a black background.

It may have happened to you sometime and you don’t know why. If it hasn’t happened to you, try doing it to see what happens … And we explain how to solve it using other techniques or tricks that avoid this black background and keep the background transparent as long as you can use.

What not to do

What is not working? If you have ever done it, you will understand why we explain it to you. If not, we summarize when the black background appears and in what steps:

• Go to Google and search for any PNG image
• Select ‘Transparent’ in the Google options search engine
• Choose the image you want
• Right click
• Tap on “Copy image”
• Go to Photoshop
• Open a new document
• Press ‘Paste’ or do CTRL + V on your keyboard
• You will see the image that appears in black and not with a transparent background

If you usually did this, there are tricks to prevent it from happening and we will explain them to you in the next paragraphs. If you didn’t, you already know what not to do when you are going to copy a PNG in Photoshop.

How to properly paste a PNG

Download the file

If you have come this far without knowing what we are talking about, it is because you usually do it this way and it may be the most obvious thing for many. When you find the image with a transparent background in PNG on the Internet, you save it to your computer in any location and then open it in Photoshop by clicking on:

• Archive
• Open…
• You choose the location where it is
• Select the file
• Press Enter or confirm with the Open button

If you open it like this, you will see that the transparent background is there, just as it should be.

Drag the image

Another useful option that maintains transparency and saves you a step, even if it’s only a few seconds. You can follow the same steps as before: search for the image in Google or select the image you want from the Internet or choose the image you want from your computer. Once you have it, drag directly from the location onto the Photoshop desktop. You will not have to follow the steps of File> Open> Location and you will only have to drag it and it will automatically open. It is the fastest and simplest option, although it will imply that you have the previously downloaded image somewhere in your computer.

Copy the link

If you don’t want to download the file to your computer and search for it from Photoshop, there is another option you can use in these cases: copy the link from the Internet. Instead of clicking on “Copy image” you should do it on ” Copy image address ” to bring it to Photoshop correctly and maintain transparency.

• Go to Google and find the image you want in PNG
• Open it to access options
• Right click on it
• Click on “ Copy image address ”
• Open Adobe Photoshop on your computer
• Go to the upper right corner of the screen
• Choose the File option and click Open
• Go to the address bar that appears
• Right click and hit “Paste” or do Control + V
• The image will appear automatically with transparency

With these three methods you can easily make the image maintain transparency and the black background does not appear. There are three simple options to avoid this problem that you may have ever seen.