lens blur

Just wondeing if anyone knows a better trick to adding a decent lens blur to my back ground without my subjects

getting halos...

 

Thanks!

Shoot with a faster lens?

 

Other than that careful masking (the extract tool in PS is good for hair) and judicious use of gaussian blur may do the trick.

i find that the extract tool in Ps doestn really do a good job on complex image, the best thing will indeed to do it at the time of the shoothing using a small aperture, but Photoshop offer a pretty cool filter that i sometime use to enhanced some shot; simply cal LENS BLUR?! : ) if you double your bakground, apply this complex filter that take some experimentation, you will get a waayyyy more natural feeling than usig a gaussian blur filter. Than with a mask a soft edge brush you just have to apply it where you want it + you will be able to play with the opacity after with the opacity slider of this layer.

 

again, its a bit complex, and nothing beat the in camera stuff when you can; easy, fast and straight forward.

On the background, you can use the clone stamp to rub out the glowing edges. Sample a point just outside the subject or on

some similar pattern and drag over the edges.

quick mask will also work for complex edges where extract fails. The mask can also be saved for later use...

Patrick...you mean "large aperture", not "small", right?

On the layer you're going to blur, you can use the Clone Stamp Tool to obliterate a generous chunk of the subject's

edge before applying the blur (similar to Michael's suggestion except it's done before blurring). This keeps the

subject from leaking out into the background when you apply the blur.

 

Here's an example showing the Clone-Stamped and blurred layer and then the final image (with some other

adjustments).<div></div>

idiot!?LOL

 

yes large aperture / small number : )

Thought that's what you meant Patrick!

 

Re the subject of applying "blur" after the photograph has been taken....it still doesn't look right. For example, the picture of Ruby (thanks for posting the technique Kent) looks like a flat dog photographed again a flat studio backdrop. There's no graduation in "blur" between near are far points so all sense of depth disappears. When the picture is taken at a wide aperture to produce a shallow depth of field, then the "blur" increases the further something is away from the plane of focus.

the use of a better masking technique will also help. Using the gradient tool to cover a bit the dog on certain area will add to the effect. But as i said, theres some stuff that youre better doing in camera if youre not ultra talented in post.

For a graduated blur, you can put two layers of your sharp background on top of each other, blur the top one, and then mask it

with the gradient tool by dragging from the sharpest desired part to the most blurred part. You can drag in any direction to

make the gradient work the way you want. Then your masked foreground goes on top of it all. I'll try to post an example.

First, here's what my layers palette looked like.<div></div>

Here's the original. The background is a bit distracting, unfortunately.<div></div>

And here's the result.<div></div>

Michael, I prefer one of those two versions....guess which one!

Pete, just an illustration of graduated blur technique. I wasn't expecting preference comments.

I know! And the grad blur in the second one has worked well - gives a sense of depth to the background. But it still doesn't seem to look right - the boy is in front of the grass, unlike in the first picture where he is clearly planted ON the ground. Can you do the grad blur on the first picture to see how that would look?

"an you do the grad blur on the first picture to see how that would look?" Here is a sample. The problem here is to apply the

gradient so that it looks natural. In this case, I dragged from a spot just below the point where the ball and tire meet on the

concrete seam to the edge of the photo following the concrete seam. I tried several variations, but this seemed to be the best.<div></div>

Here is what the layers palette looked like.<div></div>

Another gradient variation, this time dragging from the bottom of the frame to Mike's left knee.<div></div>

Michael, many thanks for showing what can be done using PS. I see in the "Mike and Ball with Graded Background Blur" that the plane of the grade is going diagonally across the photograph. This is giving the impression of a tilted plane of focus similar in ways to what I like to do in-camera using a tilt lens. I suppose to achieve the impression of a straight plane of focus in a photograph like this, you could do two gradients - one going top to bottom from behind the boys foot, and one going right to left from the corner of the wall. It makes my head hurt thinking about it!

Yes, Ruby does look like a flat dog in front of a phony flat background, which I think is sort of cool but isn't very realistic. Thank you for the excellent suggestion about using a gradient on the blur.

Michael how did you make the mask...did you use pen tool?...or is there a faster way.

"Michael how did you make the mask...did you use pen tool?...or is there a faster way"

I used the gradient tool with the mask selected. It's located with the paint bucket tool, and selected with the G key. you need

to press the D key first to restore foreground/background to black/white.

Wow, thanks all for your input. I'm financially strapped so getting a better lens is out, so I'm basically trying to save a few pictures with what I've got. That cloning the edges of the dog pre-blur--genius, just what I'm looking for, I'm not too patient with masking or extraction...

 

Tammy