Blurring tha Background

[mfgriggs]

I came across common situation a few days ago where I was taking a picture of a young girl. The background was cluttered and unattractive, unfortunately I was not able to recompose the picture for a better perspective.

I used a method to blur the background that I think is pretty good. Before I tell you how I did it, I thought it would be nice if you folks could tell me how you would go about blurring the background with one of your pictures.


Thanks

[creeduk]

I would make a copy layer of the original, I would then blur the lower layer and then mask the top layer so that only the person was left hence showing a sharp person and blurred backgound. If I felt in a different mood I may blur the top layer and mask out the person so they showed from the sharp lower layer. either way works

[Duv]

Not sure how you did it but the one thing that struck me was that perhaps the "foreground-background" should be sharper. Maybe a gradient to transition it.

Cheers
Dave

[Racc Iria]

Photoshop has a Lens Blur filter that's specially designed for creating depth of field effects like that. Just load an alpha channel selection to specify what stays in focus and adjust to taste.

It's at least in CS, but I thought it was in 7, too. Could be wrong, though.

--Racc

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Racc, unfortunately its not in PS7. One of the few things in CS I'd like to have.

[Stroker]

Before Lens Blur...

Make a mask (just like for Lens Blur).
Load it as a selection.
Gaussian Blur fairly low.
Hit ctrl + f until happy.

Maybe a few little things to stylize it a bit.
Like Motion Blur in a Low Pass method or something.

[Racc Iria]

That's too bad. I was hoping the Lens Blur filter started with 7. It really does a good job.

Well then, the best way to do it is like everyone else is saying... mask and blur.

Here's what I'd do if I didn't use Lens Blur. Especially if it's a full body shot and part of the background needs to stay in focus with the subject.

1. Duplicate Layer.
2. Blur upper layer as needed.
3. On upper layer, add a layer mask revealing the unblurred subject below.
4. Create a new layer set (or Group for the CS2 folks) and put the blurred layer into the set.
5. Add a layer mask to the set (group) layer, NOT the blurred layer (it should still have its own mask).
6. Using the gradient tool on the mask with white as the foreground color, decide where the focal point is and click there. Then, while holding the click, drag upwards in a straight line, and release at the point where the chage in focus should end. This is subjective and will depend on the image. It's not usually very far.

What this will give you is a subject that stays in focus, and a background that starts out in focus with the subject, but appears to get more out of focus as the distance from the subject increases. If you need to defocus some of the foreground, just make a selection from the bottom of the image to the focal point and add another gradient to the mask in step 6, but this time, drag down instead of up and you'll probably want to drag past the bottom of the canvas, so that the foreground won't be as out of focus as the background (unless that's what you want).

--Racc

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Doug wrote this excellent Tutorial on creating a 'Depth Mask' .... He used the new Lens Blur Filter, but it can be replaced by Gaussian Blur ....

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Flora, agree with you about the excellence of Doug's tutorial.

However, using Gaussian Blur does not give quite the same result. By using a graduated mask and GB, the fall off in focus is linear, whereas that by Lens Blur does not seem to be so.

The effect is still quite good, but if the two are stood side by side, the lens blur is the more realistic.

I know because I don't have Lens Blur on PS7, and spent quite some time trying to replicate the effect using GB, and, despite endless adjusting of the mask, could never quite get it right.

[edgework]

The problem I've found with usin G-Blur and a foreground mask is that the blurred background contains the foreground image as well, and, depending on the radius of the blur, tone will seep out from behind the edges of the sharpened foreground figure. I will usually do some down-and-dirty cloning along the edge between foreground and background, choking the background into the foreground (before duping the layer of course). That way you won't get that telltale bleed.

My limited experience with the lens blur is that this is not as much of an issue, since the blur is applied to a single layer.

[mfgriggs]

I created this thread for two reasons. First of all I needed to know how to properly blur images with poor backgrounds......Secondly, I was hoping to get an idea how you guys might approach a situation during a photo shoot. This shot was taken at a wedding reception. It was very hot and cramped and no parking was available. Therefore all the cars were forced to park in the front, the back and along the sides of the building. As a result pretty much all outdoor shots had cars in the background. First I thought "Hey I can fix this in photoshop". I used my 1D Mark II with a 24-70 mm lens to shoot the bulk of the shots, especially those that had more than one person in them. However, I just don't like the idea of using photoshop as a crutch. So I attached a 85mm lens to my digital rebel and opened the aperature to 1.2. I focused very closely on the girls eyes and took the pic.

My question is this.....How do the photoshop experts(you guys) approach a difficult shooting situation like this? Is your first thought "I can fix it with software" or "I can fix it with hardware". I know that both methods have advantages and disadvantages, I am just curious how you do it.

I appologize if this thread offends anyone.

[Gary Richardson]

Depends on the situation and what you're trying to achieve.

Usually its much easier just to take the shot, but there are occasions where a software solution can rescue the image.

Personally I have no hard and fast rules, and judge each picture as I see it.

I don't suppose this helps you a lot, but I suspect a lot of members use this pragmatic approach to picture taking.

In the case of your image, if I wanted the cars out of the shot, and I couldn't get the subjects to pose another day, I might try taking the background shots another day, when the cars weren't there, then transposing the figures onto the "clean" backgrounds. Of course this would require a lot of work, and a similarly lit day. Depends on how important the pictures are to you, as to whether this is worth doing.

[creeduk]

This might be one to take to a photo driven forum maybe they have members that do everything hardware and never use software some that do both. I think (maybe I am wrong) most here are into some form of retouching so maybe a more biased opinion.

[Cameraken]

I was a professional photographer for 20 years and a wedding photographer for over 10 of these so I’ve done hundreds of weddings.
When customers booked their weddings we used to plan where the photographs were to be taken if it was fine and an alternative if it was raining.
If there were no suitable ‘backdrops’ at the church or the reception then we would plan a detour to the nearest park for all the main guests/family.

All this was pre photoshop but I’m sure that a little thought like this today would save hours sat at the computer trying to fix things.

Mfgriggs. You obviously understand depth of field and you are using you camera correctly but a little thought about the background at the taking stage will save you a lot of work later.

Take the shots the best you possibly can at the time. Insist you subjects walk a little further to another location or where the lighting is better. They will thank you for it later when they see the results and you will save time trying to ‘fix’ them.

There are some well lit trees in your background. Had you asked your model to step back to the rear of the cars this would have made a big difference.



Ken