Laura's Addiction ~ Selections in PhotoImpact

Activate your Magic Wand tool with these attributes (being sure to click on the + mode):

If you're using a different image than mine, you will probably need to adjust the Magic Wand Tool's attributes. Try changing the Similarity (a lower number means less pixels will be affected, a higher number means more).

Click on the white background to select it. You'll also need to click these four areas:

Zoom in (keyboard shortcut +) and scroll to the bottom of your image.
Click on the flower vase shadows and any other stray pixels you may find:

Now your entire white background should be selected, with the selection marquee showing around the outer edge, the flowers and vases.
(Use keyboard shortcut Ctrl+0 to get back to Actual View 1:1)

On your menu bar, click Selection > Store Selection.

Now take a look at your Layer Manager!

Toggle between Layer... and Selection... to use the two managers within the same window.
The Selection Manager shows that you have a selection stored, from this canvas.
If you Duplicate the canvas, your new canvas will not show the stored selection.

No matter what we do to the entire image from this point on, we have that white background selected (represented by the black color) to do what we will with, without affecting the the area where the flowers are.

Now, back to the canvas...

Right click on your canvas and choose Invert. (Selection > Invert)
Right click again and choose Copy. (Edit > Copy)
Right click one more time and choose None. (Select > None)

Let's play! Do whatever you'd like to the image.
Try some of the Special Effects, the Retouch tools, whatever you'd like.

Here's what I did...
In the EP Gallery, go to Special Effects > Artistic and look for Smear2.
Right click on the thumbnail and choose Modify Properties and Apply.
Change the Canvas color from White to a different color. I chose a light blue #B6C7EA.

Go to Fills and Textures and look for Glass 2. Double click to apply the default settings.

Go to your menu bar and click Selection > Load Selection > OK.

With your selection loaded, go back to the EP > Special Effects > Fills and Textures > Plastic 2.
Right click on the thumbnail and choose Modify Properties and Apply. Arrange settings as shown here and click OK:

This will apply the Plastic effect ONLY to the area where the white background was.

Remember we copied the inverted selection earlier?
What we did was copy the flowers and vases to the clipboard, so go ahead and right click on your canvas and choose Paste (Edit > Paste > As Object).

Now that your flowers are back, place them however you'd like. Here's how mine turned out:

I placed the flowers off center a bit and Merged All.
Then I took the Blur tool at size 4, Level 1 and lightly ran it around the edges of the vases.