Over the years my photo 'skills' have noticeably improved, especially here on this blog. Some of it is due to editing of the backgrounds. For Etsy shops there is access through Etsy to one such photo editing website called fotofuze.com (it may be available to everyone else too but I haven't verified this).  Here are 2 photo examples of how I use this online editing software to improve backgrounds.  I'd say that it works 75% of the time, especially if the subject of the photo doesn't have a lot of white color to it.

Getting a white background  for product photos

 
 When the background whitening feature fails then I brighten the entire photo and leave it at that.

If you like this post, leave a comment. Also, if you'd like to see another photo improvement post like this one let me know,  like how I did this cool cut-out paste photo.