Selective Blurring in Photoshop
August 5, 2008
In this Selective Blurring in Photoshop Tutorial I hope to explain how to blur selective parts in an image.
With the below image I wanted to blur the background and keep the girl completely normal. In this tutorial I’ll explain how you can do this, on this image and others you want to in the future. I’ll be using layers, masks, the brush tool and simple blurring. It may sound complicated but it’s really very easy when you know how.
Below you’ll see I used a motion blur - although this tutorial is on blurring, you can adapt it to change the background colour but keep the girl the same. All you have to do is think outside of the box and play.
Feel free to request something similar to this Selective Blurring in Photoshop Tutorial.
Before
After
Selective Blurring in Photoshop Tutorial - The Steps
- Firstly open up the image you want to use for this tutorial (you can use the image above to try this out), if you don’t know how check this tutorial out.
- Now duplicate your layer. To do this, I use a shortcut: CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + J
- Now go -> Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal All - your layers should now look like this! Your newly duplicated layer should have a small thumbnail of your image, and another one to the right, it should be white.
- Now on this image I used Motion Blur but in the future you can play with this effect and use any form of blur… So, now go -> Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur - Once the little box has appeared change the angle to 0 and I changed the distance to 45
- Once you’ve got your blur, go to your layers palette and look at your duplicated layer and also the white layer mask. With your mouse, select the mask.
- Now go to your brush tool, make sure the colour you’re currently using is black. Also make sure that you also have your opacity at 100% and select a round default brush, I decided on the size 35.
- Now start to erase the blurriness that you can see on the girl - your aim is to erase all the burry effect from the girl but also leaving the background blurred. To begin with, you may find it hard, but it gets easier. The best thing to do is go slow and possibly zoom in so you can see the lines better. To zoom in, just press Z on your keyboard, then click your image - it’ll zoom in. Go back to your brush tool (press B) and continue to erase.
- You can have a look at my layer and image half way through here. If you look at my layers and then at the mask (white
box) you should be able to see the black bits… that’s what I’m doing while erasing the girl.
- Aaandddd you’re done. I hope this Selective Blurring in Photoshop Tutorial was helpful - however if you have any questions regarding this tutorial then please leave a comment below and I’ll happily reply.
Motion Effect in Photoshop
June 29, 2008
This Motion Effect in Photoshop Tutorial will explain how to create the below effect.
I rather love this photograph, but I wanted to alter it, to try and make it look like it was taken in the car, a car which was going very fast - so I attempted a motion effect. I also wanted to darken it and deepen the colours, make them brighter. In this tutorial, I hope to explain and show you how you can copy what I’ve attempted to do, not only on the image below but in the future on other images.
This effect works on any type of image, but I find it works best on this type of photograph, one that suits the motion blur. However the deep colours etc can be used on any other image, always very useful.
Feel free to request something similar to this Motion Effect in Photoshop Tutorial.
Before
After
Motion Effect in Photoshop - The Steps
- First of all, duplicate your image, I love the shortcut, saves a lot of time. CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + J
- Then go to Filter -> Blur -> Radial Blur - now change your settings to mine.
Amount: 15
Blur Method: Zoom
Quality: Good
Press OK when you’re done - then go to your layers palette and change the layer mode from “Normal” to “Overlay”
- Now download this file then go back to Photoshop and go -> New Adjustment Layer -> Hue/Saturation -> Load -> Locate your file -> press OK
- Now go, Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Brightness/Contrast and change your settings to mine which are below.
Brightness: 0
Contrast: +15
- Now download this file - then go back into Photoshop, then go Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves -> Load -> Locate your file -> press OK
- Now get your eraser tool, select a soft round brush (100 is good). Select your duplicated layer (it is the second layer - not the original, but the other one) and move your eraser brush slightly over the ‘STOP’ sign so that you can read the sign better.
- Once all the above steps are done I suggest merging your layers by pressing the following keys on your keyboard. CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + E
- Now you need to select the whole image. CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + A
Then go to your tools and find the Rectangular Marquee Tool (or just press M ). Once that’s selected then look at the top and you’ll see a box and before it you’ll see it’s called ‘Feather’ set your feathering to 55 - If you’re confused then look this screen shot.
- Now press ALT on your keyboard and select a sort of rectangle in the middle of your image. It can be big or small, depends how much you want to be dark (around the edges that is). Mine looks like this.
- Now go -> Layer -> New Layer Fill -> Solid Color - when the first box appears, change the layer mode to “Multiply” and adjust the Opacity to 90% - press OK and then select black, press OK again.
- Now duplicate your new black solid layer - CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + J
- And that’s it. If you have any questions regarding this Motion Effect in Photoshop Tutorial then just drop me a line in the below comment box. I’ll happily reply.
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