background help in elements..

pearljamfan

i took a photo of my friends and new baby sitting on their sofa, and they want to get a print of it, but i think the background looks bad, its a plain white wall but has a darkish shadow on one side of the wall, how can i get the wall all white using elements?? ive tried selecting the area and using the contrast settings, and it ends up looking really fake, any ideas!:D

squareballoon

does Elements have the doge and burn tool? It can be useful to use dodge (set to midtones) at a low opacity to lighten an area.

pearljamfan

thanks, yes it does, i tried but failed before but ill try that again, maybe on a different layer and change the blending modes. grr.

squareballoon

is it a picture you could post and I could have a quick go of it?

pearljamfan

heres one i was struggling with, i took a few but the baby wasnt really interested!

squareballoon

I think it looks ok as it is because the lighting on the wall suits the way the man is lit. If you want to even out the wall colour though make a new layer and you can paint over with the cream colour of the bright side of the wall, set it to overlay and then use the eraser to erase back the subject at 60%, keep erasing over the subject until you are happy with it. Because it wouldn't be natural to have a very bright wall beside a shadowed subject don't erase right to the edge.

pearljamfan

thanks for your help! i prefer your version, ill have a go now myself.