How to change background of a pic in photoshop?

[salman]

Hello to PS expert

I have a pic of mine that has a housy* (that's the word I feel appropriate) background ... But to use it on social networks, I'd like to use a white or light colored background ...

So please guide me ...

I have photoshop CS 5 installed on my system !

Thanks !

[sjeeta]

Upload the picture
Create new layer
Use the magic wand to select the background and you might use colour picker to add your selected colour.

Do not forget to create layers for every step.

[Phoenyx]

The magic wand might not work as well as it could. it may cut sections off of the image you're trying to remove from the background. (With all due respect )

You have three more options you can consider. Either using masks, the pen tool, or content aware. Out of those three, my personal selection would be the masks.

Create a new image, decide on the size you want to use and fill it with black/white/another image.
Add the image you want to use to its own layer above the background you created.
Highlight the image you want to use and go to layer - add mask - reveal all (If I remember correctly) This gives you a brush with black and white selected. Most times, the black erases and the white reveals what was erased. Using a soft brush (at least 50%), you then remove the background from the image, taking care around the parts you want to use. if you make a mistake, you can use the white color to add back what you've lost (erased) - so it works like a safety net.

When you're happy with the image, you can then just merge the layers - by holding shift and clicking the layers (or just clicking to top and bottom layers) and then pressing control and E (works for multiple layers), or highlight the top layer and pressing control E (for two layers) or you can go to layers - flatten image.

This is the process I use when creating my digital art and need to add a model to a background.

[thes11]

Yes masking is the best way to remove background from image. Also pen tool and content aware may used for the task. But in this situation magic wanted tool can't work as well. It may cut out some necessary pixels.

[quain88]

sometimes reading others answers make you learn, i dont know much of photoshop but now i get some tips here