Step 1: Select the background

The plain background makes it easy to select the whole lot using the Magic Wand or Quick Selection tool, but the difficulty comes when you need the detailed selection around the hair. The Magic Wand will not be any use here and neither will the various other Selection tools so we will use the Colour range option.

Go to Select>Colour Range to call up the dialogue box and select the centre eyedropper icon which has a + by it. Click on the background area in the preview window. Certain parts will turn white. When you click on another area it will add to the selection. Select more areas and adjust the Fuzziness setting until all the background area is pure white. Don't worry if some of the area inside the silhouette of the model is also selected we can remove this using one of the Selection tools later.


When you are happy with this outline click okay and the picture will have 'running ants' around your model. If you have areas of the image selected that you don't want to be choose one of the selection tools, we are using the quick selection tool, select the logo which has a – next to it and click on the selection you want to be removed.

Step 2: Hue/Saturation

Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation or select Hue/Saturation from the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.


When the new window opens make sure colourize and preview are selected so when you adjust the Hue slider you will see the background change colour. You can also adjust the saturation to change the vividness of colour while adjusting the lightness changes the overall tone of the image.

The good thing about Adjustment layers is they don't affect the base picture and can easily be deleted, leaving the picture unaltered or they can be adjusted later to change the settings you've previously made.