Free digital photography backgrounds

I'm into digital photography. One of the ways to make "studio" photographs is to do a background replacement and put the subject on a studio looking background. People sell these "backgrounds" on ebay for $25-$100 bucks. I'm going to show you how to make them for free with a graphic editing program called "the gimp". First off make a empty image with your target photo size in mind, select a color that you are interested in, I like a dark blue. select a much lighter color that is the same a light blue the same hue. Now the magic part, add a new layer, select filter, render,clouds,plasma. adjust the slider to get something you like and press OK. now tools, color tools and adjust saturation down to -100. The last thing you need to do is adjust the transparency of the plasma layer to your liking. Voila the expensive textured color background from a high priced studio. make thousands of them in differnt colors or simply make them as you need them. Personally, I do not like doing it this way, you can not get a clean photo this way that prints well as 11X17 the only way to get awesome results is to shoot on a good background that you want to begin with.

A little tip for my fellow photogs out there. if you must do digital backgrounds, dont pay for what you can make in 6 seconds.