Changing ugly backgrounds in pictures the EASY way

You all know that first of all we are not the best photographers, we do not have the best cameras, we don't have a lightbox, or even a nice backdrop for our cakes. Often we take pictures wherever we can, and that usually means we have a cluttered background. Not very pleasing when we want our cakes to be the center of attention. So what can we do? Well, I do eventually need to work on an area in our bakery where we can take our cakes for a proper photo shoot, and I can work on my photography skills. However I've still left with tons of pictures that are well, not so great. 


I've started dabbling in doing the most basic photo editing, just so I can at least make the cake stand out more, the colors pop more, and other very simple changes. The background though, still stands out like a sore thumb. At least until today, when I finally tried my hand at changing it through photo editing. 

THE BEFORE

Using FOTOFLEXER, a totally free photo editing software, I was able to change the dreaded background, rather simply too. It took me about 20 minutes, and while it's still not perfect, I think it's much better. I won't walk you through an actual tutorial, because there is a great video on the site, that explains exactly what you need to do. It's very self explanatory, so trust me after watching it, anyone can figure this out, super fast.


To do this go to the GEEK button which is on the very right, and click on SMART RECOLOR. Then just watch the video, and it will walk you step by step through doing this. 


I do however recommend that for the sake of simplicity, try this on pictures that don't have a very complicated edge for the part of the picture that you want to keep. While the software predicts the areas pretty well, you still need to go in manually and erase, or recolor parts of the pics, and the smoother the edges, the easier it will be for you, especially as you are learning like me. 

HE HE, I know that you can totally tell it's been edited, lol, BUT doesn't it look better anyway? I'm sure I could have done a much better job with the edges, it I used an actual mouse for better control, and if I had something like a ruler, or straight edge to use instead of the little dots, they give you to edit with. 


Do any of you have any further tips, or advice on doing this, with FREE software, and preferable on a mac computer. 


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