Brenda in TX wrote:
> I would like for the background to be solid black. Can someone
> give this newbie Photoshopper step by step instructions on how to
> accomplish this and maybe how to sharpen the bird up just a tad?
> Any help is greatly appreciated.

The best way, I think, is with a channel mask. It's a bit more work than the method Shital mentions, but will give a more precise result. Here's the final image:
http://www.pbase.com/image/16751973.jpg

Go to the channels palette and click on the green copy. This will give you good contrast for the step to follow. With the green channel highlighted, click on the "Create New Channel" icon at the bottom of the palette.

Now you'll make this channel pure black and white. Click on Image>Adjustments>Levels. You'll move the sliders mostly to the left to arrive at this result:

The levels settings:
http://www.pbase.com/image/16752104.jpg

The mask:
http://www.pbase.com/image/16752106.jpg

At this point you might need to clean up the mask a bit. It needs to be pure white and pure black, no grays. Take a hard edged brush set to 100% opacity, set your foreground to black, your bg to white and paint out any grays or shadows on the parrot.

Now, highlight the mask you just made in the channel palette and click on the first icon at the bottom (the broken circle). You should see marching ants over the mask. Return to the layers palette, and highlight your parrot layer. Hit the add layer mask button (circle in a box).

Create a new layer, fill it with 100% black, and place it under the parrot layer. Your bg should turn black now. Click on the layer mask to make sure it's activated then go to Filter>Other>Maximum, and set it to 1 or 2 pixels. You're trying to make a smooth transition between your bg and the mask. Play with this slider under it looks smooth.

As for sharpening, there are dozens of ways to do it. I'll leave that subject to others more knowledgeable than me. For now, just do this:

Save your image at this point. Go to Image>Duplicate and flatten the duplicate. You'll now have one layer left. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp and use these settings (for the size image you gave us, a larger image will require more sharpening):
Amount: 75
Radius: 1
Threshold: 0

That's it! ;)

--
Pam
http://www.pbase.com/pam_r
'art is working on something 'til you like it...then leaving it that way'