Copy/Paste image with transparent alpha layer into illustrator

Question

I often go to Google Images, search for something interesting and do right-click/copy-image then in illustrator I paste it. Unfortunately when the image has a transparent background, this background is replaced with an ugly black color.

I know one solution would be to go to Photoshop, but it is cumbersome...

Is there a way to quickly restore the transparency in illustrator?

Answer 1

In most instances this is due to the operating system clipboard and how it handles the transparency.

Saving the file first, then opening in Illustrator generally gets around the clipboard. I drag images to my desktop from a browser, then open in AI.