Well I don't find it to be a coincidence that I never once posted a halfway decent picture (IMO) of any of my snakes until I upgraded to a better camera. Seems that it doesn't matter what you do, shatty cam = shatty pic. It can make the difference between a pic that is just OK and one that is great.

However, I only one the contest once and you guessed it, it was with my old shatty camera. I didn't bother editing to try to "improve" the picture either.

Still, it's regrettable I didn't make that shot with the better camera.

I don't see any good reason for needing to edit to get a plain background. Surely anyone has available to them a background that qualifies as "plain"