How do I blank out the background on a photograph?

Question

I have adobe photoshop elements 3.0 and I need to edit a picture to blank out the background and make it completely white. I've seen this done on other people's photos. How do they do this?

Answer 1

Thank God the person below gave instructions for CS2 since that's not what you are using (and rather crappy instructions at that)

There are two ways to do this

1. Select a soft edge brush and carefully paint white over everything but the subject. Use a smaller brush when you are closer to the subject.

2. Not sure if Elements has this option but there should be a tool for creating a selection (for CS2 users it's the lasso tool). Use this to drag a selection around the subject. Once the selection is complete, select the inverse and fill with white. Again, this isn't the most precise way, but probably one of the best for Elements

Answer 2

I use photoshop CS2. I cut out the subject and drag it in to a new blank window. You can then put whatever or nothing in the background.