1. A telecommunication device, comprising: a microprocessor; an image capture system that captures an image of a local participant in a telecommunication session, the image comprising foreground and background images defined by plural pixels, each of the pixels having a pixel magnitude related to a sample of the image at a spatial location of the respective pixel; a background modifier that segments the plural pixels of the captured image into foreground and background sets of pixels based on spatial coordinates of the pixels and independent of pixel magnitudes, replaces the background set of pixels with a template set of pixels to form a new background set of pixels, each selected pixel in the template set of pixels having a different magnitude than a magnitude of the corresponding pixel in the background set of pixels replaced by the selected pixel, and combines the new background set of pixels with the foreground set of pixels to form modified image information; and an output to provide the modified image information to a remote endpoint and/or to a display to display the modified image information to the local participant.