Drop one or more application icons onto an AppleScript droplet created from the script below to have those items' Launchpad entries eliminated. You can drag items or be prompted to select them when the AppleScript runs if you don't want to save it as an application. There is some error checking and information in the script. It doesn't do anything to the apps themselves.
You can test it on the app itself. In AppleScript Editor, save it as an app, drag the app's icon onto Launchpad, activate Launchpad, launch the app, then drag the app's icon into the window and press return when prompted.
on open the_items my Lighten_LaunchPad(the_items) end open on Lighten_LaunchPad(the_items) repeat with the_item in the_items set the_item to the_item as alias --try tell application "Finder" set nameString to name of the_item set sost to (my get_the_name(nameString)) as string end tell display dialog "Are you sure you want to remove \"" & sost & "\" from the Launchpad? The app itself won't be deleted." try set my_command to "sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\\ Support/Dock/" & "*.db \"DELETE from apps WHERE title=" & (quoted form of sost) & ";\";osascript -e 'tell application \"Dock\" to quit'" do shell script my_command on error the error_message number the error_number activate if the error_number is not -128 then if the error_number is 1 then set the error_text to "Error: " & the error_number & ". " & "You probably have too many old versions of the LaunchPad database file." & return & return & " To fix that, move some old ones out of ~/Library/Application Support/Dock. You can safely move any file with a name that ends with \".db\" or \".db.backup\" except for the most recently modified one." & return & return & "Do you want me to open that folder for you?" display dialog the error_text buttons {"Yes, please open it.", "Cancel"} default button 1 if button returned of the result is "Yes, please open it." then do shell script "open" & space & quoted form of POSIX path of (path to application support folder from user domain) & "Dock" end if error number -128 else set the error_text to "Error: " & the error_number & ". " & the error_message display dialog the error_text buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1 end if else error number -128 end if end try end repeat display dialog "All done!" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 end Lighten_LaunchPad on get_the_name(nameString) tell AppleScript set olD to text item delimiters set text item delimiters to "." set reqItem to -1 if last item of nameString = "." then set reqItem to -2 set theName to text item reqItem of nameString --try set theNameNoExt to ((text items 1 through (reqItem - 1) of nameString) as string) set text item delimiters to olD return {theNameNoExt} end tell end get_the_name on run set the_items to ((choose file) as list) Lighten_LaunchPad(the_items) end run