FREE Tutorial: Changing an Ugly Background in your Picture

*Video Tutorial at the end of this Post

Being a military family you might imagine how having a brick & mortar studio could be out of reach but there is still a way to create beautiful studio-like portraits in your or your clients’ homes. When I first shared this before and after picture a few of my fellow photographer friends asked me to make a tutorial on how I did it. So here we go!

I immediately fell in love with this image when I first uploaded it onto my Macbook, but the door just had to go. The picture I’ll be working on was the next image in the series. After editing this family to my liking I flattened in Adobe Photoshop then saved just in case I lost the progress I’d already made. (Learned the hard way!)

Starting with your Flattened image you’ll want to duplicate the layer and create a blank layer set under your duplicate. Choose your desired background color and using the Paint Bucket Tool click to cover the layer in your color.

Here is where the fun part comes in. Using the Quick Selection Tool you want to select all the way around your subjects. It takes some time and fine tuning but be patient, you want it to be as close as possible!

Once you have a rough outline click the “Add a mask” button under your Layers Tab to create a layer mask.

Looks okay, but we want this to look like it was taken in your studio on seamless! To get those fine tune adjustments you can either use the Paintbrush tool and carefully add or remove where necessary. You can also Double-Click on your Layer Mask then click the Refine: Mask Edge button. I like to use the Smart Radius function and set my radius between 1 and 1.5.

Without clicking OK (Which will just close out the Refine window) you can drag your cursor over the areas where fine tuning is needed. You can go back and forth between these methods until your image is to your liking.

Once I was finished I used a Soft Vignette and a Spotlight action. On the delivered product I blurred out the visible banding. Check out the video below to watch the action!

Related Articles:

Edit Outdoor Snow Images in Photoshop 

How to Save an Under-exposed Image in Lightroom

Other Basic Photoshop Courses:

Lesson 1: Basic Color Adjusments 101

Lesson 2: Basic Color Adjusments 102

Lesson 3: How to use the Crop Tool in Photoshop

Lesson 4: How to Use Levels for a Color Scheme in Photoshop 

Lesson 5: How to Whiten Teeth in Photoshop

Lesson 6: How to use the Spot Healing Brush

Guest Blogger:

Stephanie Perry is the owner of Stephanie C. Perry Photography. Specializing in family, children’s and women’s portraiture in Lawton, Oklahoma and El Paso, Texas. Driven by the rapid rate of her own children’s growth she believes in the value of capturing as many precious moments before they are distant memories.