Remove Background from image

Fellas please advise me on how I can eliminate the background completely from an image and also how I can only lighten the background without affecting the image. I am trying to create lone graphics consisting of objects (like a tree without their background). Thanks for your help!

well u cant lighten the background without affecting the image. that doesnt make sense. anything you do in photoshop will affect the image..

but i think what you are looking for is a selection tool...use it to select the part that you want to have the focus...the tree or whatever...then right click and copy as new layer...then go to the background layer and alter it however you want...change background brightness...blur it...dim it...delete it...anything you can imagine!

good lucky and rock on!!

Well to do something like this I usually make a copy of the picture I want to affect so that I have two layers of the same pic to start out with. Then I mask out the object in the topmost layer and apply an effect to the bottom layer.

hth,
animgirl

That's wrong; Parts of a layer can be manipulated by using a selection. So if donnwar uses the magic wand to select the background, then uses Hue/Saturation, the changes will only affect the part in the selection

Thanks guys I am trying out everything! It's a bit confusing! Let me see how it goes. Again thanks!