In this tutorial you will learn how to create the illusion of shallow depth of field using the Photoshop lens blur filter for version CS3 or later. You will also learn about the unique behavior of this filter. This tutorial is specific to Adobe Photoshop CS3, however there are plugins available (they might even be free) that allow you to achieve similar results to the lens blur filter. For Photoshop CS2, visit http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/index.php [details (http://www.retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=321)]

It feels weird in my stomach looking at the finished image. I think the key is create the background with "bokeh" that gives the photo a true shallow depth of field without giving viewers nauseated feeling. Maybe it's just me.

You can play around with the filter settings (including the specular highlights) to try to mimic the non-ideal bokah of a lens. Another trick is to reduce contrast slightly in the blurry areas. This tutorial was quite simple and extreme so the effect would be obviously visible. In practice, there is no lens with a large enough aperture to create the effect shown in the tutorial at the perspective shown, so this particular example will never look "realistic"--or at least it'll look like a photo of a toy bench.

I mainly wrote the tutorial to provide an alternative to the much less-realistic-looking method of masking a gaussian blurred layer.

Bart