Creating Selective Blur in Photoshop

You can produce some interesting selective blur effects with the Lens Blur filter in Photoshop. It is a technique originally created with a specialized camera and sometimes used in advertising images. Following is a quick tutorial on how to create a similar Lens Blur effect in Photoshop. Photoshop gives us a lot more control after the image is taken and how the blur is applied. It is a very effective technique great for emphasising a focal point or drawing the eye to a specific area of your photo.

First, create a selection on you photograph with the Elliptical Marquee tool. (situated on the rectangular marquee button).

Now feather the selection using Feather Selection in the Select – Modify – Feather Selection.
Type in 80 as a feathering range. (can vary depending on photo size)

Click on ok. Your selection may not change much on the screen but it will now be a feathered selection.

Click on Filter – Blur – Lens Blur. This will bring up a window for adjusting your lens blur settings.

Within this window you can adjust your settings. Select invert so that the outside of your subject is blurred. Below are the settings I used, you can adjust yours and experiment with your own settings to get an effect you are happy with.

And here is the final image. I love this effect and I am sure you will find many uses for it as well.

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© Robyn Gough 2009
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