How to change background ?

[love0715]

http://www.mabelandTerence.com

Please keep an eye on the third-last picture (where my bride stands by herself, with brown background) in this animation,

I tried using Magic Wand tool to remove brown background but it's very difficult to remove the background cleanly

What would be better method ?
IF i hire someone to do it, what would be the likely cost $ for one picture?

Thx
Terence

 

[Big Mike]

There are several ways to remove the subject from the background.

I believe that the best way is with a layer mask, that way it's easy to brush the mask on or off...allowing you to fine tune the transition.

To get the initial selection, using the magic wand can work. You might also try using the extraction filter. Or selecting color ranges. Or even the pen tool if the shape is is right.

To make the extraction clean, you often have to get in really close and take your time.

 

[Digital Matt]

The best way I've found is to use the channel mixer to conver to black and white, and adjust the tones until you have a maximum contrast between the subject and the background. Then you copy the merged contents of your image, paste them into a new channel, and begin to use the dodge and burn tools, set to highlights and shadows respectively, and you convert the image to 100% black and 100% white. THis is your selection. YOu can then paste this into a mask.