Painting in a solid color into the background and adjusting tone

In this image, we are removing the distractions on the background by painting in a solid color.

We will make a selection of the hat so that we can freely paint around the hat with a solid color.

Paint Background with a solid color

• Chose the Quick Selection Tool
• In the options bar, make sure you click on “add to selection”
• Click and drag on the area you want to select
• On the option’s menu click “Select and Mask”
• On the new window select Smart Radius 2 px
• Smooth 19
• Feather 0
• Contrast 9%
• Shift Edge +8%
• On the upper menu go to Select
• Chose “Inverse.” At this moment, everything but the hat is selected
• Create a new layer
• Click on the Eyedropper Tool and take a sample color from the background
• Click on the color you want to sample
• Pick the Brush Tool
• Paint over the areas you want to cover with the color
• On the upper menu, go to Select
• Click on Deselect. That’s it!

Adjust Color and Tone

• Under the adjustments panel click on Curves
• Drag line down (a little bit) on the lower half to increase contrast
• Drag line up (a little bit) on the upper half to make it lighter.

Previous Editing

• Adding to an image with Content Aware Cropping
• Removing distractions with the Content Aware Fill
• Removing distractions with the Clone Stamp Tool