Editing software

[vixen]

All you great COL photographers, please help me as I value your advice.
I am very fond of this photo of Marley (in all her tatty glory) but I do not like all the things in the background - part of the hose pipe, broken slabs, bits of a bush and part of sister Stevie's ear.    they are very distracting. I know that I should be more aware of background before taking the photos.  
I don't have Photoshop software or Picassa  (that won't work with a mac).  All my photos are stored in iPhoto and there doesn't appear to be any tool that actually gets rid of certain parts of the photo.
I think that it can be done but would I have to buy a really expensive package to achieve it?



I would be really grateful of any advice given.  

[Pip895]

Nice photo - I've got the package (Photoshop CS4) but its new and I am struggling with it a bit (too many years using microsoft - its like a foreign language) - if someone more competant doesn't offer - then I would be happy to have a go.   Do you want the background just made out of focus, adjusted or gone/changed completely.

[LottieLu]

I'm ABSOLUTELY no expert but do use a mac and iphoto. I don't have photoshop. So, using iphoto I've touched up images - ie: lovely photo of dog but want to remove the dog lead in the pic. In case I mess it up I select my photo, right click and make a duplicate. This way I can tinker away and know that the original is still there if I mess up. To blur out bits I don't want in the background I open the image and click retouch and 'rub' the cursor over the bit I don't want to see to blend it in. It's worked well on small bits of image so far.

This is my own very arbitrary way of doing simple bits avoiding begging my son to do it in photoshop for me!

[JaspersMum]

I picked up a cheap software package where the clone tool is helpful at removing the sort of things you want  Photo Explosion deluxe  I think it cost me about £15 from Range  

This is a bit crude as I've only spent 5 mins on it but gives you an idea


or you could remove everything behind

[vixen]

Thank you so much for everyone's replies.
LottieLu - I have made a duplicate of it in iPhoto but didn't know where to go from there.  I will try your suggestion.
Jenny, you are an   for doing that editing for me.  
I was absolutely thrilled when I logged on today and saw Marley's images.
Millions of thanks for taking the time to do that for me.  
Makes my photo look almost professional.  

[Annette]

Wow! What a brilliant job!!!

Lovely dog too!

[Pip895]

Brilliant job Jenny - It would have taken me hours to get that sort of finish using photoshop.