How do I remove the background from a photo using iphoto?

How do I edit out the background of a photo in iphoto? I want to remove something from the background since it is distracting.

I just bought my MAC and do not have photoshop for it. I want to see if Iphoto can do it. I don't have the cash for photoshop CS5 right now.

Mike

iPhoto has rudimentary editing capability. You can use the blemish removal brush to do some touchup. A better choice is Adobe PSE, far cheaper than CS5. There are also other options such as Pixelmator (which I have not used).

+1 for Photoshop Elements. But look at the free Gimp or Seashore too. Both get regular mentions here although I've never used them.

If you're looking for that level of photo editing, but don't really need pixel critical work, I'd actually recommend getting Aperture over Elements for the reason that you can just totally replace iPhoto and not look back. Aperture is about the same price so you not only get very good editing capabilities, but the use of a DAM as well.

My only suggestion if getting something like Aperture is to create a folder hierarchy for your genres. If you want to go even further, I'd say create them with dates such as the year and at least the month. The metadata will contain the dates so this isn't always necessary but it makes folder browsing easier if you don't want to search out metadata fields.

Doug