How To Blur Backgrounds In Photoshop – Shallow Depth of Field Effect

Jesús RamirezJesús RamirezMasking & Backgrounds
ByJesús Ramirez

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  1. 0:00 Introduction
  2. 1:25 Set up the Background and Foreground Layers
  3. 1:48 Isolate the foreground
  4. 3:54 Layer Mask explanation
  5. 4:44 Remove the foreground from the background layer
  6. 7:11 Create the Blurry Background Effect with Field Blur
  7. 8:46 Blur the background with the Tilt-Shift Blur
  8. 10:06 Refine the Layer Mask with Select and Mask
  9. 12:06 Create the Boke effect (out of focus point of lights)
  10. 14:22 Use Camera raw to enhance brightness and color
  11. 17:00 Remove distracting elements with the Patch Tool
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The best way to create a blurry background in your photos is to do it all in camera. But sometimes you may not have the right lens, or you are you are working with older photos you already shot.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to blur backgrounds in Photoshop using the Blur Gallery.

How To Blur Backgrounds in Photoshop With The Tilt-Shift Blur Filter

This first technique is geared for beginners and will be an easy-to-follow method that uses the Tilt-Shift Blur filter to fake the shallow depth of field focus on a flat photograph.

This filter works by dragging a few simple UI controls, and you can create a blurry background in Photoshop in no time!

You Can Find The Old Blurry Backgrounds Photoshop Tutorial Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to3EXCPfY4w

Download Blurry Background Tutorial Photo Here

Click the link below to download the file:
067 - Lens Blur Filter - Blurry Backgrounds (14970 downloads )
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Before: How To Blur Backgrounds In Photoshop – Shallow Depth of Field Effect
Jesús Ramirez

About the author

Jesús Ramirez

Jesús Ramirez is a graphic designer and the founder of the Photoshop Training Channel, which he started in 2012 and has grown past two million YouTube subscribers. He has taught at Adobe MAX, Adobe Summit, and Photoshop World, teaches courses for CreativeLive and Pluralsight, and was one of five artists chosen for Adobe Stock's Make a Masterpiece campaign. His Photoshop templates shipped inside Photoshop CC 2018.

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39 Comments

    1. Two reasons, fast computer, and sped up the video like 1.4x. To save you, the viewer, some time. So it was fast, but not as fast as the video.

  3. Thanks for the great tutorial, Jesus. I’m going through your beginning PS tutorials, but I managed to do this. Yeah!

  5. Great tutorial,I worked with CAD and have to do lots of renders and this is the one thing I need to master,thanks

  9. Hey thanks for the videos you make just got back into photoshop and never knew it’s true power till now .

  12. Perfect timing for me to see this! I’ve been working on a photo that needed this exact treatment! Thanks a bunch!

  13. The Real Photoshop Training Channel.I cannot wait for the next video with different techniques that I had never learned before.
    Thanks PTC.

    Best Regards.

  16. Hi I followed along with this tutorial on Youtube. It’s awesome BUT for some reason I am getting the total opposite of what I want to happen. After I use the quick selection tool–When I press “q” the objects that I want in focus ends up being out of focus. How can I fix this? Im using Photoshop CC 2017

    1. Laurie,

      I think that your settings for the Quick Mask might be reversed. You can double-click on the Quick Mask icon (below the foreground/background color picker in the tools bar) to bring up the options and select “Masked Areas”.

      I hope this helps!

  18. Very Nice Tutorial Jesus! Your instructions so methodical and easy to follow. Thanks for this tip.

  19. An awesome video tutorial, as usual. I have learned so much from tour style of teaching. Learning the mapping technique is invaluable to me. Thanks for all you do for the photography and photoshop community. One question, did you make the image available for download? If so, where is it located?

  20. Jesus, love your work and always learn something from your presentations. As a suggestion, since it’s always difficult to see the ‘marching ants’ in a selection you make, could you just turn quick mask on and off to show the affected area?

  21. Great tutorial! Here’s one last thing that I do after the blur. Since there are some subjects that due to their very nature can’t be selected with 100% accuracy no matter how much time you spend on them (think hair, fur, some fabrics, etc.) I put a white mask on top and with a very soft brush (0% hardness) and a very low opacity (10-30%) I paint black around the edges of my subject so a tiny bit more of the original subject blends through and makes it look more seamless, since the edge is not so sharp anymore. This helps even if the original selection has a soft edge, sometimes it’s impossible to select all the details and this helps not to lose them completely. Looking forward to the next tutorial!

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