Americans don't pronounce them exactly the same.

However, some American dialects change the pronunciation of /æ/ before /l/ in a way that I believe makes it sound more like /ɛ/ to foreigners. In fact, in a few New Zealand and Australian dialects, these vowels become identical before /l/; see salary-celery merger; this merger would indeed also merge Allen and Ellen, but I don't believe it has happened in any American dialects.

UPDATE: the OP was asking why some Brits heard "Allen" when the actors in Fatal Attraction were saying "Ellen". I believe the pronunciation of /ɛl/ is nearly the same in the U.S. and the U.K., but if you're listening to an unfamiliar dialect, you rely more on context, and my guess is that the people watching got the name wrong because they were relying more on context and the girl playing Ellen looked somewhat like a boy.

Do Americans pronounce "Ellen" and "Alan" in the same way?
I have photos of a product and I would like to create a white background behind it. Like it is done in this example:

I have tried playing with levels and the brightness but that also messes up the product itself. How do i do this?
