Photoshop trpuble

K1ngP1n

Hi
What I'm trying to do is photoshop an image of my dog. (As I am a new user I can't post the image yet)
He's facing the camera and lying down and for whatever reason I really like it.
The problem is that the background is very busy, lots of colour among other things.
What i want to do is make the background so it fades into black, not just use the lasso tool to get rid of the background and change it to solid black if you know what I mean. (Sorry if this is confusing)
Right now I'm using Pixlr online to edit but if anyone knows of a better (and preferably free) editor I'm all ears.
Thanks in advance
Made an account just to post this thread so please help me out!

Joe Doe

It's hard to photoshop an image without using photoshop, but if you want to image manipulate an photo...

...best plan would be buy the cheaper photoshop 'lite' version / failing that Gimp is a similar, powerful 'free' bit of software. Your OS will have some very basic photo tools too, esp if a Mac.

A tastier approach to 'cut-out on black' would be to make a (quicker) 'feathered selection' using 'layer masks' or the lassoo tool selection, then blur and slightly darken the background to it looks like pro photo with some depth of field

5uspect

The Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop essentially let's you paint brightness. GIMP should have it too.

There's other options like a desaturate brush and gradient masks. It depends on the image really.

CabanSail

There would be literally hundreds of different ways to achieve this effect, and then variations on each of those themes.

I know I have my own favorites that are non-destructive and vary depending on the image. Probably too hard to describe here unless you already have some post production experience.

Get involved here and soon you can post the image and we can help.

If not then have a look at tutorials on YouTube for Cut Out/Masking techniques on whatever software package you are using.

Tiriel

You could add a gradient onto the background, which is semi-transparent - it would effectively dull down the background and almost look like a vignette. You can do this in Picasa if you don't have photoshop.. it's a free tool and does a decent job of basic photo edits.