White Backgrounds in Photoshop

Don't be afraid to use white backgrounds when you have a dominant subject. As I showed in my previous post it doesn't necessarily have to be plain white. However, this one here is. As you can see with the original picture, the green background is a distraction. I cut out the monkey carefully refining the edge with the much improved Refine Edge option under Select in Photoshop Elements. I then did some transformations in Studio Artist to make the fur even softer.

Flowers from Washington

When I was in Washington last year, I took some pictures of flowers and to make it easier to use later, I used the trick of putting a sheet of white paper behind the flowers that I was photographing as you can see in the photo below:

I cropped the picture, took away some of the green shadow below the flower and extended the white paper to below the large leaf on the right.  I then manipulated it in PSE and Studio Artist and loved the way that the shadows on the paper gave the picture some interesting background texture.