European Cup

I have no passion for the beautiful game, but when Liverpool

Chaplain Bill Bygroves visited my boys' school the other day my

magpie-like instincts were fired up by this big shiny thing. The

security guards nearly lynched me when I borrowed the cup to place

it in a more photo-friendly spot, but I think it was worth it.

However, I would really like to lose some of the distractions in the

background. Can anyone advise me how I might sympathetically remove

the background without making the photo look too doctored?

I see why you were interested in this object--the question is why you object to the background. It's so consistent with the reflected image that any attempt to remove it would indeed look "doctored." The big difficulty you have is that the bright spotlight you placed the cup in has reduced contrast in the background significantly. First, I'd suggest masking out the hot spots with plenty of feather and bringing up the contrast in the background to give the whole thing a bit of pop. Secondly, you might consider masking out the whole cup and foreground, and applying a bit of blur to the background, so it looks like you've got a very shallow depth of field. Hope this helps.