Backdrop Not Wide Enough

I recently took a series of portraits with the subject in front of a plain white paper backdrop. I would like to print some of these photos as 8 X 10 prints but the backdrop was not wide enough for me to crop the picture without some other background. Can anyone suggest a way that I can effectively stretch the background wide enough to cover the other background objects? An example can be seen at <http://www.jboulet.com/probpic.htm>

Thanks in advance.
Jim

Jim,

I would cut the subject out of the current background and paste him into a new canvas that was close in value to what you want. You can either do a rough feathered selection and then blend the old into the new, or draw a Path and use that for an exact selection. Or... third method. Duplicate the BG Layer. Add a third layer underneath the BG. Fill that layer with the tone you want. Then on the duplicate BG, which should be your top layer, add a Layer Mask and paint away what you don't want. You then may have to fine tune the tone of the new background, but it's a very quick method for getting where you want.

This particular picture was pretty easy. If the rest of them are similar, you should have no problem.

Here's what I did:

First, I set my Rectangular Marquee tool to "Fixed Aspect Ratio" in the Options Bar, and entered 8 for width and 10 for height.

I drew out a marquee surrounding the subject and the BG.

Copy, Create a new document, and paste. (CTRL+C, CTRL+N, Enter, CTRL+V)

Now, I marqueed, from top to bottom, as wide a portion of the paper backdrop as I could on the subject's left side. CTRL-J copies it onto its own layer. Do the same on the subject's right.

Select one of the new backdrop pieces, CTRL+T, and stretch the selection to the side of the frame. Do the same with the other.

Here's a look at the one I did...took about a minute:

Alex101-Full Backdrop <http://home.comcast.net/~phoz/bbs/alex101-fullbackdrop.jpg>

Thank you very much folks.

Phosphor, I used you suggestion. Slick!

Thanks again,
Jim

Glad to help, Jim.