I need to lighten up the background on this thing (the curtain in the background specifically). I've tried selecting just the curtain and different layer modes and color adjustments but nothing looks right.

Suggestions? Edit: Scroll right to see the entire photo.

I would try to adjust the levels.

Image > Adjustment > Levels

Leave Channel on RGB and move the middle slider of the Input levels a bit to the left.

If you dont want to have everything lighter, then you should select the curtain only.

Hope this helps

I tried that Fempie but it didn't look so good.

What I've tried/done so far is:

1. I used a quick mask to select just the curtain areas.
2. I turned the selection into a path to gain better control over the selection (nice way to make a complex path in a hurry by the way).
3. I used the path to do the actual selection of the curtain, copied the selection and pasted it into it's own layer.

From there I've tried messing with levels, curves, bright/contrast, saturation. I duped the layer and tried different layer modes. I sacrificed a chicken. Nothing's worked.

(Well okay I didn't sacrifice a chicken. It was a roast beef sandwich and it was technically my lunch.)

Figure this is about what you're looking for

what I did here was too add 2 adjustment layers, masking the curtains (in a very crude way ).
First adjustment is a level adjustment leveling the RGB channel (0, 1.75, 185 and 31, 255) wich gives a very bright blue.

To tone the blue down I used a hue/saturation adjustment layer to set the saturation lower.

Offcourse this isn't optimal (hence the dark parts in the right), you just have to play a bit with the sliders.

Try using channel mixer. The blue channel is the only one that has any shape at all in the curtain.
I used a channel mixer adjustment layer to get the blue channel info into the other channels,
then duplicated the base layer to the top and set mode to color.
Any areas that are too bright can be masked out of the channel mixer adjustment layer.

Good tips Krank! I'll have to see if I can do something similar in Gimp (no PS/CS2 for me ).

But that is closer to what I want to do!

man...ya tried replace color on the curtain?

Thought I'd take a couple minutes and see what I could do.

It took all my willpower not to do somethng RUDE to this. But I didn't.

or

DID I?

BTW, one of the players is added from another snapshot. Is it too obvious which one it is?