I'm working on a website for a friend of mine. It's a very minimalistic webdesign and right now I'm using a dark grey-ish background. However if found pictures like this:
http://www.puurkleur.com/afbeeldingen/gallery/Spatula_Stuhhi_01.jpg
http://www.puurkleur.com/afbeeldingen/gallery/la_casa_dei_sogni_01.jpg
I want to create a similar effect to use for the background, instead of just the one color grey. I like the 1st link most, it's not just 1 color, but not too contrasting and it's subtle. I'm not experienced with photoshop, I tried to find some tutorials but I can't find none that matches the effect I want to achieve. (probably because I don't know the terms is should google on) I tried playing around with gradient and the brush tool, but it's not even close to what I want to achieve.
Does anybody know what photoshop techniques should be used to create similar effects? If I know that I could google more specific and probably I will be able to find some good tutorials.
Thanks in advance.