Thanks Crichmond. To start with, camera settings are as follows: Shutter 200 or 250 which should synch with your flash max. speed; ISO 100; aperture f22. To be sure your settings are correct take a picture without the flash and you should get a totally black image. With an off camera flash, and preferably a overcast or shady area, zero in on your subject, which in my case were flowers. I like to single out a flower, not as I did in the image I sent, so the flower stands out in a totally black background. Since I did not do this, using Photoshop Elements, I use the Elipitical tool to create a circle around the single rose. Then I used Inverse and darken the remaining image slightly. Before using Inverse, you could enhance the lighting and color of the subject that you have circled.

There are some good tutorials on Google for this process that you might want to check out. Google "Black Background Photograpy".

Hope that helps. Give it a whirl and lets see what you have come up with.