Hi there,

I was wondering how to blur out the background of a picture and keep the subjects in focus, without them looking like paper cutouts? I noticed in most professional shots, the background is always blurred and I can't acheive that with my camera because of the lack of a quality lens/focus depth. I've tried with photoshop, but a lot of the time, the "in focus" items seem to look like cutouts.

Thanks!

I use the lasso tool and draw around the subject then select>inverse >feather ...after feather is selected you have to put in how many pixels you want the filter to transition by...so depending on how big the original is you'll have to dial this number in yourself. After the feather number is picked go to blur>gaussian blur...then select how much blur you want.

You can also dup the layer and blur the top layer then use a layer mask and trace out your image in the forground that you want to be sharp.

Two quick ways that I've used.

Hi G Deezy,

Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

Bujo gave you an excellent tip already ... but you could also have a look at this great Tutorial (http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=167) on the topic ...