[Alan]

Hi Toby

I hope I’m reading you right!

Cant you just use a magic wand tool to select the dark area, feather the selection by a few pixels and blur the background until the flower edge softens?

Or select the edge of the flower with a magnetic lasso tool, feather the selection, inverse it, and do the same?

Or how about masking the area you want, and refine it by painting in/out areas of the mast, then converting the mask to a selection, feathering it and so on..

I use Photoshop by the way!