fading the background

Please forgive my complete ignorance about photoshop, I'm a complete newbie with very little experience. I hired an amazing photographer to take promo pics for my website and he did an amazing job. However, there is something he doesn't know how to do and I hate to keep bothering him about it since he's been so great!

The pics are for my website which has a black background. The pictures were taken with a solid gray background with a light aimed behind the subject in the foreground. The result, in theory, is a nice glow around the subject which then fades to black the further toward the edges of the photo you get.

Ideally, the fade (gradient, whatever you call it) would reach black before it gets to the edge of the picture (I don't want to see be able to see the edge). However, in many cases the edge is too close to the subject for that to happen.

Is there a way around this? I'm not sure the best way to describe what I'm asking. lol Here's a link to the picture I'm referring to:

http://mind-whispering.com/1DS_1706-Edit.jpg

It just seems like there ought to be a way for the gradient to fade faster in certain areas so that it reaches black quicker (before it gets to the edge). Does that make any sense?

try saving it as .png (no background) .jpg will be a solid color right to the edge

Be sure and look at the pic. That should help explain what I'm asking.

I wonder if there is a way to open up the picture as a background layer, then duplicate the layer and cut around me (leaving a good buffer between me and the cut, but the closer I am to the edge of the picture the closer to me the cut is) and delete the part of the cut that has me in it (so that you have a mask of the background on top of the original picture), then lower the brightness on the mask until the edges are solid black, then somehow blend the two layers in a way that is transparent at the cut but becomes more and more opaque. That's very difficult for me to describe lol! I was able to do everything except for finding a way to blend the two layers. :-/