Help with replacing the background

[den]

Hi...i have a photo of a subject that as a messy background and would like to know how to replace it with just a plain one...i have never done anything in PSE apart from cloning and i have never used layers and i dont know how to..i hane lightroom 4 and pse 8 is trhier anyine who could help with a step by step guide on how to ...any help would be apreciated .Thanks

 

[cjevans]

Select what you want and put on a new layer is the general approach. If you want to make it darker in LR you can get a brush and make it very dark and the brush around the background to give a black background. May help if you post the image and then you'll get better advice

 

[den]

Here is the image ,,as i have said i have not used layers and i dont no how to select as i have never done it before......i realy do need a step by step guide ...i do have the adobe pse8 guide book but if you dont no what you are doing it's not much use......
Kingfisher (female) Dec 11th by den9112, on Flickr

 

[leftcurl]

i use elements 9.. but just check this on your version.

if you open your image then click 'image' from the top.. then choose 'magic extractor' from the list. Not sure if you will have magic extractor or not, but if you do then that is very simple to use to do what you want to do.

 

[dee1985]

This is beautiful

 

[den]

i do have the magic extractor but i am not sure how it works and i realy am a novice at this and not sure were to start.....

 

[Kerioak]

I would not be inclined to replace the background with a new one but change the one you have

Could someone who uses Elements can say whether what I have done quickly here is possible?

Duplicate layer and either mask in the bird and branch as I have done here OR duplicate the layer and erase everything but the bird and branch.

Make a new adjustments layer using Hue/Saturation and reduce saturation to -60

Make new layer, fill with black and reduce opacity to 60% (using the opacity adjustment above the layers)

 

[Kerioak]

Or looking at it again just darkening that bright yellow branch to tone it down and bring the focus back to the kingfisher - create a new layer and paint a dark colour over it with a soft brush and then reduce the opacity of the layer using the slider option that appears if you click on where it says "opacity" above the layers

 

[den]

Thanks for trying to help...i have found a tutorial online i will have a go at trying to replace the background.....

 

[astraman1]

youtube is good to show you step by step guides i use them all the time

 

[swanseamale47]

I'd just blur the background out a bit after selecting the bird and inverting the selection.