Want to fix my photo?

This is not that great a shot, except that the b&g look so relaxed & happy, but wouldn't you know, it's one the bride wants a print of if I can get the bozo, er, gentleman in the background out (yeah, I know, it was our bad for getting him in there in the first place). My experience with CS4 at thsi point has been with cloning things out, and nothing this intertwined with the subject. I tried following a YouTube tutorial using the lasso tool but it looked awful. I'm gonna post a small-web size so you all can see that photo and also a link to the Yousendit.com file so you can work on the RAW SOOC image, if you're willing to accept this mission. i would be MOST grateful, & would love some step by step instruction on what you did to fix it. Thanks in advance!

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https://rcpt.yousendit​.com/1085793681/176c12​972ba67c903efe9d9029b4​e328

I did this quickly, so it isn't perfect...Use an adjustment layer with a gradient and mask as necessary.

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Did you use any fill flash with this shot? I'm obsessing over portraits & lighting now, so I'm always curious about the shooting details whenever I see a great shot like this.

hawkeye60 wrote in post #12151171
I did this quickly, so it isn't perfect...Use an adjustment layer with a gradient and mask as necessary.

Well that looks pretty good for a quick fix! I just need to figure out how to do what you described! Thanks!

Norkusa wrote in post #12151288
Did you use any fill flash with this shot? I'm obsessing over portraits & lighting now, so I'm always curious about the shooting details whenever I see a great shot like this.

My husband took this shot on his 7D & we're both pretty sure he wa using his 580EXII on ETTl since he does almost 98% of the time during receptions. I don't know how photogs keep up with exactly which shots they did & didn't use flash! Anyway, there was a big window camera left that was giving some big ole golden light, but still pretty sure with this even lighting, he used the flash. His camera settings were f2.8, 1/800th, 70mm on the 24-70L, 1600ISO. Thanks for the post!

http://www.retouchup.c​om - I use them for my editing, prices are cheap and they do great work. They offer 10 free retouches for pros.

tim wrote in post #12153458
http://www.retouchup.c​om - I use them for my editing, prices are cheap and they do great work. They offer 10 free retouches for pros.

Awesome, Tim! I'll see what they can do for me!