User blog comment:AdventureWriter28/Chrono Stone Sprites/@comment-3554193-20121217131913

Nice header I really like it! You made that in Photoshop?

Also, You don't need photoshop to do this. You can easily use Paint.NET with Magic Wand tool to remove the background with solid colors. With sprite that has 90% solid color and 10% of noise of some sort, you can still use Magic Wand to select the background area then hit Delete. Continue cleaning up background by using Eraser tool. If the background's color is similar to the sprite color, try using Magic Wand tool with less tolerate, so that the tool won't select inner elements of the sprite.

Skilled required are only skill of using the mouse carefully (and patient).

Hope you guys gained some experience on making the background transparent! :D