The function from @ geoffs3310 should be the accepted answer here, but note that the saved png does not contain an alpha channel.
To remove the background and save the new png as a transparent png with alpha, the following code works
$_filename='/home/files/IMAGE.png';
$_backgroundColour='0,0,0';
$_img = imagecreatefrompng($_filename);
$_backgroundColours = explode(',', $_backgroundColour);
$_removeColour = imagecolorallocate($_img, (int)$_backgroundColours[0], (int)$_backgroundColours[1], (int)$_backgroundColours[2]);
imagecolortransparent($_img, $_removeColour);
imagesavealpha($_img, true);
$_transColor = imagecolorallocatealpha($_img, 0, 0, 0, 127);
imagefill($_img, 0, 0, $_transColor);
imagepng($_img, $_filename);
source
share