How to get a black seamless background...

I get a lot of emails asking how I get a deep black/seamless background making baby look like they are "floating". It is super easy and doesn't take a lot of time. I know there are a lot of ways to do this, (even some actions out there that do it for you), I use the burn tool in photoshop. Good news is that you can do this with elements too! Choose an "airbrush soft round" set it to "midtones" and set the exposure to your liking. To get it all deep black I use it at 100%. Now just go over all of the black area. You have to be careful around the areas you don't want darker. I actually do this with a layer mask so I can go back over any areas that I accidentally burned. If you aren't sure what layer masks are....just be careful around the edges. (I am way too tired to talk about layer masks tonight!)

This is a screen shot of a picture before I burned the black...

After....

This method does take a little practice. You have to make sure you get every single area. I think this is key to making pictures look more professional!