Software to edit out background

[Alvaromejia]

Hello! I am a new member of Cambridge Colour. I am very glad to post questions and sometime soon some pictures.
I owe a lot to Cambridge. Some years ago I used some of the great tutorials and learned a lot from them. Thank you very much!
I need to remove all or part of the background of a picture. I also need to fill the area with a solid color in a way such that I do not have to go fixing the edges manually. I understand that several programs do this. I will appreciate the recommendation of the easiest to learn to use and then the cheapest. I currently use Windows 7 and Lightroom 4 to file, archive and edit pictures. I have a new application that requires speed of processing (many images) as opposed to artistic correctness (Sorry to have to do this).
All help and suggestions are sincerely appreciated.
Al

[GrahamH]

Good evening Alvaromejia,
May I be the first to welcome you and the first to request that you post an example of the type of image you want to process in this manner.
There are many different ways to do the task, some easier than others and some better than others for various reasons.

Thanks,
Graham

[Manfred M]

Hi Alvaromejia - depending on the complexity of the image / subject matter, this could be either fast and fairly simple to do or extremely slow and complex that requires some powerful (and expensive) editing tools and loads of experience in using them.

The fast and simple ones usually mean that the photographer knew ahead of time that some elements of the image needed to be extracted and photographed them with this end result in mind. I'm thinking of shooting a subject on an appropriate, yet plain, background so a chromakeying technique can be used.

I agree with Graham; it's hard to say without seeing an example of what you are trying to do.

[Geoff F]

This previous question may prove useful Gaussian Blur in Photoshop Elements 9

In that case, the background was to be blurred but replacing it with a solid fill or alternative background will be similar.

As previously mentioned, an example would help us to give more specific answers.

[Alvaromejia]

The Gaussian Blur in Photoshop Elements was very, very useful in getting a feel for what I am asking and its complexities. Thanks very much for the prompt reply. I will post images as soon as I can.
I have two situations:

First example (image 1): I need to change the color of the foreground or the background of some images, but getting to the edges without disturbing the line has been impossible for me. I would like to change the orange to red and back to orange without damaging or making the lines ragged.
Second example (image 2): I would like to remove images from the background of a photograph and make the background a solid color. This will make the foreground image the focal point of attention. In this example I would like to make the upper right hand corner black to remove this distraction from the image.

Please accept my deeply felt thanks to every suggestion, instruction or comment on this matter.