We can’t always determine the background in our pictures at the taking stage. Quite often our subject is in a place where a fussy background cannot be avoided. Well, all is not lost, take your images anyway and do something about the background on your PC.

Purchasers of the CD will find the original file in the goodies folder titled fussy_background.jpg

We shot this Hawk above as it was perched against a wall. We chose a tight crop, but the background could not be avoided. Call up the full resolution file, which you can download from the link above and follow the process to see how these problems can be put right.

Step 1. You will see that the image could do with a little crop from the right so the first job is to call up the crop tool high lighted below.

Crop a couple of inches off the right hand side of the picture as shown below.

Call up the levels palette via the shortcut keys Ctrl+L to adjust those all important levels. Click the eye dropper icon at the bottom right of the levels palette and touch down on a light part of your image that still retains detail. We found the area just at the top of the beak gave a good result as indicated below.

Step 2. You can deal with the fussy highlights in the background with a variety of tools, but for the smaller areas the clone tool is perfect. Double click the clone tool from the toolbar and make sure the use all layers box is ticked as shown below.

Ticking this box will allow you to clone to a new blank layer. You can then make all your changes on a new layer and only commit them to the main image when you are completely happy with them.

Call up the layers palette via the F7 key and create a new blank layer by clicking the centre icon of the three at the base of the palette. Enlarge your image, select a soft edged brush and by holding down the Alt key you can sample one area of your image and transfer it to another.

The clone tool is best used in a series of dabs rather than in a painting motion. Change the sample point often and your work will be undetectable. While you are using the clone tool you can also clone out the little white specs on the birds feathers. You can deal with most of the high lights in this way, but those that border the birds feathers can be dealt with slightly different. Only merge your layers together when you are completely satisfied with your work. There is no pressure to do this early in the process so be sure before your do merge the layers.

Step 3. You will now need to deal with the more tricky high lights that border the birds plumage and you can do this using the copy and paste commands. Select your freehand lasso tool from the tool bar and mark out an irregular shaped selection over an area of background you wish to copy from. Make sure it is big enough to cover the high light and that the area you have selected is a tone that is likely to merge well as shown below.

Feather the edge of your selection by about 10 pixels and using the shortcut keys Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy and paste the selection to a new layer. Photoshop will create this layer for you, but make sure you have clicked back onto your main image first and you are not still on the new blank layer you created earlier.

Select your move tool and move the copied area over the high light. Don’t worry about overlapping the feathers as we can deal with that next.

Choose your eraser tool from the tool bar, a soft edged brush and make your pressure setting for the eraser tool no more than 10. Carefully erase the pixels that overlap the feathers. You can repeat this process for all the other areas of high light. On the right side of the bird you can also cover up those little white feathers sticking out that caught the light .

Step 4. The majority of the birds back is a little light and lacking in depth, but you can adjust that with your levels command. Make a free hand lasso selection of the entire back of the bird from below the head leaving out the wing on the left which is already a strong tone. Feather the edge of that selection 25 pixels and call up the levels palette via Ctrl+L. Move the centre slider to the right to give the feathers a rich tone to finish your image.

If you call up the original image again and compare it to your final image you will see the dramatic change in the quality of your picture with just a few simple changes.