The fastest way to make the background white

[Lich555]

Hello.

I've got the photo below. What's the most efficient way to make the background white?

The way I usually do this is by selecting the background, mostly using Slection Brush Tool. Is there any faster, simpler way?

[GarryP]

Are you bothered about keeping the colours the same, or would you allow for some (maybe small) colour changes?

[Old Bruce]

I would select the background and use either the Recolour adjustment with 0 for the saturation (and play with the lightness to get the amount of "white") or use an HSL adjustment and again set the saturation to 0 (and again play with the lightness).

Hardest part is  selecting the fingers and leaves that are not in sharp focus.

[Lisbon]

There is a way that involves making a copy of the channel with the best contrast, in this case the blue... but this is a lot of work.
Try a Live Procedural Texture instead.

You can save this procedural texture as a preset.
The letter "B" represents the Blue Channel.

Almost there but there is a small problem. The color of the finger nails is gone.
Take a black brush and paint on the procedural texture mask over the areas that need to be restored.

[firstdefence]

1. Select the Selection Brush Tool (W) and use these settings.
   
2. Brush over the Cactus, pot and hand etc until you have made a good selection
3. Click on The refine... button see previous screenshot and if you are happy with the selection use the settings in the next screenshot and click apply
     
4. Now you can add a Fill layer and colour it to your taste, as in White.

Exhibit A

[Lich555]

On 12/15/2022 at 2:52 PM, GarryP said:

Are you bothered about keeping the colours the same, or would you allow for some (maybe small) colour changes?

Do you mean about hand + plant colours? I'm change it too so if the changes you wanna make are not drasitcally it's ok

  

On 12/15/2022 at 5:15 PM, Old Bruce said:

I would select the background and use either the Recolour adjustment with 0 for the saturation (and play with the lightness to get the amount of "white") or use an HSL adjustment and again set the saturation to 0 (and again play with the lightness).

Hardest part is  selecting the fingers and leaves that are not in sharp focus.

But it doesn't make it faster than my method because you still gotta select the background manually, right?

[RichardMH]

Flood selection tool might work for you. Untick contiguous.