Smoothing backdrop & Removing items

[JetLaw]

Hi:

I have been into photography for quite awhile, and have recently started trying to get a grasp on photoshop. I have played around a little bit, but feel as though I am probably not using it the right way, as my results are less than what I really want. I have two photos that I currently need to tweak, and I am looking for advice (the more detailed steps you can give me, the better), as to how to do it properly.

In the first photo, I attempted to smooth the wrinkles from my backdrop muslin. I used the healing brush and clone stamp, but the "tool marks" are visible in the photo. I really don't know the proper way to do this, and would love some help. I normally shoot against either a white or black muslin.

In the second photo, I was using a barstool to hold a speedlight and unfortunately I couldn't get it out of the frame. I would like to remove the stool from the model's right side. I was thinking that it may be possible to take her silhouette from the other side and flip it over and use it to remove the stool, but again, I don't know how to go about doing it.

Thank you in advance. I really want to harness the power of photoshop so that I can take my images to the next level.

Here are links to the two photos:
http://joshpix.com/JFP_0612.jpg
http://joshpix.com/JFP_0755.jpg

Thanks,

Josh

[iDad]

Myself,I'm not very good at explaining things on here (I type embarrassingly slow) but from what I read it sounds like a relatively easy task. there are numerous tutorials on the web that will help you.
Here is a list of just some I am sure what you need to do is in it
Tutorials

[Nishi]

Yeah it'll do.