[Huck179]

Thanks for the quick replies!

I’ve tried to apply those techniques and I can now see that I was applying a very heavy matte (a solid white block foreground and solid black background).

If I simply apply a key to the image it does a great job but their is then some transparency in the face and shirt (i can see the transparency grid through the image) As soon as I tweak the “Clip White” setting even a minor point it brings the noise into the image?

I was thinking of creating a matte using auto-trace and then applying it to a seperate layer and then blending them together is that something that is commonly done?

This is a real learning curve! Thanks again for taking the time to help me with this.