| Make a selection of the background--in the easy example you posted, I just used the magic wand. If you want to be absolutely sure you aren't encroaching on the subject, you might contract the selection by a couple of pixels.
Then put this selection on a new layer all by itself (in paintshop pro, this is the "promote selection to new layer" command, in Photoshop I think the command is something like "create a new layer from copy"--it would be in the layer menu.) You still want to have the background selected. In paintshop pro this happens automatically, but as I recall in photoshop, it clears the selection, so you'll need to preserve the selection somehow or reuse the magic wand on the original layer--I'm sure there's an alt-ctrl-shift-tab-key combo that does this :-).
With the new layer active (this is the layer with only the background on it) do a gaussian blur (or any blur will do) of maybe 30 or more to smear out the blotches without killing the background gradient. You're done in 30 seconds.
This will work as long as you don't have severe blotches right next to the subject. If that is the case, then I'd use the object remover tool (PSPX again) to remove the object completely, replacing it with an extension of the background. The closest thing to that in Photoshop is the healing brush, but I'm not sure how well the healing brush works on a huge thing like an entire person.
I attached the layer palette and result for the "simple" procedure.
Bart | 
02-22-2006, 11:03 PM
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