Fixing a Distracting Background in Photoshop

Explore three ways to fix and/or remove distracting backgrounds and foregrounds.

Capturing your subjects at their best is vital to getting great portraits. But it's just as important to make sure that distracting foreground or background elements don't upstage your subject. This Portrait Project course takes you through three solutions for dealing with distracting backgrounds and foregrounds in Photoshop. Educator and photographer Chris Orwig shows how to blur out distractions from a background, use the Patch and Clone Stamp tools to clean up a foreground, and replace an ill-fitting background with a new, more pleasing one. Learn techniques for bringing focus and clarity to your portrait subjects in this course and then check out other ways to enhance your portraits, in the Portrait Project series.

Introduction

• Welcome
• Using the exercise files

1. Fixing the Background with Blurring and Masking

• Selecting the subjects and masking them out of the background
• Adding a Smart Filter blur effect
• Improving the blur edges with advanced masking
• Painting in more blur
• Making final sharpening and color adjustments

2. Removing Distractions in the Foreground

• Cleaning up with the Patch tool
• Reviewing the Patch tool settings
• Retouching with the Clone Stamp
• Dodging away shadows on the sand
• Improving the ocean and sand with adjustment layers
• Brightening the subject with curves and reviewing the final project

3. Replacing a Distracting Background

• Opening up both images in a single Photoshop document
• Selecting the subject from the background
• Using adjustment layers to create better color
• Adding a glow effect to the subject
• Retouching the face and improving the eyes
• Adding curves and reviewing the final image