Regardless of how they got there, photos with either distracting or differing backgrounds backfire in terms of enticing shoppers. Instead of making the merchandise compelling, it turns off potential customers, and in some cases, will cause you to lose sales. So, how to address the issue? Fortunately, there are a number of techniques in Photoshop that you can use to edit product photos to minimize — if not fix — the problem. In this article I'll have a look at some of the approaches that you can take, depending on your specific needs.

Using the Crop Tool

Blur and Desaturate a Background

Return to the image and make a rough selection around the product or subject that you want to remain in focus. (It is often easier to do this if you hide the blurred layer by disabling its visibility icon and make your selection using the image data on the underlying layer.) When the selection is made, click the blurred layer to ensure it is selected and click its visibility icon to display it again. Hold the Alt key as you click the Add Layer Mask icon at the foot of the Layers palette. This adds a Layer Mask that reveals the underlying layer only in the selected area so your product is in sharp focus and the rest of the image is blurred.

You can also reduce the impact of a distracting background by converting it to black and white or by partially desaturating it to remove some of its color. This effect can be combined with a blur so you can blur and desaturate a background. To convert a background to grayscale, follow the steps for blurring the background and, instead of blurring it, desaturate it by choosing Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and drag the Saturation slider to -100. Alternately, you can use your favorite method of converting a layer to grayscale. Then, when you add the layer mask to the top layer, you'll see the colored layer through the mask.

Replace the Background

Start by converting the background layer of your image into a regular layer by double clicking it and click Ok. Make a selection around the subject and then click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the foot of the Layers palette. This isolates the object from its background. At this point you can make adjustments to the mask by painting on it with black to remove areas of background and painting on it with white to reveal parts of the image that you may have removed in error.

Once you have a good mask in place, drop a background behind your cut-out object. To use an image as a background, drag and drop the background layer from a second image into this image and drag its layer to the bottom of the Layer palette. To create a custom background, create a new layer and create your background on it by filling it with a solid color or a gradient fill.

When this is done, you can soften the edges of the image by clicking on the Layer Mask thumbnail, choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a small radius blur to the mask. This will softens the mask's edges and help blend the image into the underlying layer.

Changing Color

Set the layer blend mode to Color, select the color to use and paint on this new layer with the paintbrush. The mask will prevent the paint from spilling over the subject of the image. When you paint on this layer, you retain the texture of the image background as you recolor it.

Bottom Line: Don't Distract, Convert!