Change the Background of a Photo

Do you want to change your photo with a fake background? Do you need to remove the background of gray clouds and replace it with blue sky? Or replace a generic studio backdrop with a different scene? At Fake a Photo, we can remove the background of a photo and replace it with a new background to make it into a cohesive realistic scene.

How To Remove the Photo Background using Photoshop®

The first step will be to manually create a clipping mask around the object that you want to preserve. This is easiest when there is a lot of contrast between the subject and background…contrast by a difference in color, a difference if focus (or blurriness), etc. Online automatic clipping websites and automatic clipping tools do a poor job at clipping paths resulting in rough edges and are not very accurate. It is much harder to create an accurate clipping mask if there is no contrast, example a black subject on a black background. Next, create a new layer underneath the subject. Place any new background image on this layer. For the final step, compare the original subject and new background and see if they mesh well together. You may have to adjust one of the layers to make the picture look more natural, such as adjusting the levels, contrast, color balance, etc. See the example below.

Replace Photo Background Example

In this case, The client wanted to add a fake background to make the picture a stormy night photo. We started by clipping out the original background sky, then added in a new layer of lightning and stormy clouds. Then we had to adjust the colors of the original foreground to match those of the new background image. In the end, we were able to replace the background with an image of lightning and adjust the colors to create a realistic looking photo.

Change the image background

Original image before changing the background.

Fake backgrounds for photos

Retouched image with a different fake background.