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 two fantastic techniques.
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!
How To Blur Backgrounds in Photoshop With The Lens Blur Filter
The second method is an advanced technique takes a few more steps to complete, but it creates a much more realistic shallow depth of field effect.
This technique will use the Lens Blur Filter alongside a Depth Map to create a shallow depth field effect much like a real camera lens would. You will be able to selectively chose what objects in the image will stay in focus and which will be blurred.
You can use a simple selection to determine which areas are blurred, but I recommend using a Depth Map since it allows you to create more complex selections quickly if your image requires it.
The black areas in the Depth Map are treated as though they’re in focus, and the white regions are treated as if they’re out of focus. The different shades of gray are of course different levels of focus.
Depth Maps are stored as Alpha Channels, and in this tutorial, you will learn how to create them.
Links Mentioned in This Photoshop Tutorial
► Advanced Hair Masking in Photoshop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to3EXCPfY4wTutorial assets for the older tutorial can be found here:
067 - Lens Blur Filter - Blurry Backgrounds (2353 downloads)
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Final Image
Drag The Slider To See Before & After
Nice!
I want to know how you selected Cheryl so fast?
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.
That was awesome, thank you!
Amanda,
You’re welcome!
Thanks for the great tutorial, Jesus. I’m going through your beginning PS tutorials, but I managed to do this. Yeah!
Kerry,
I’m so glad that you were able to complete this one! Great job!
Great tutorial – thanks!
Great tutorial,I worked with CAD and have to do lots of renders and this is the one thing I need to master,thanks
James,
I’m glad this helps you out in your CAD work!
Thanks for sharing this,but when I download this tutorial download only the 286 KB image file
Tissa, the download is only the image so that you can follow along.
Bonjour à Vous,
Merci pour le tuto et pour les backgrounds !
Bien cordialement
You’re welcome!
great tutorial
Thank you!
Hey thanks for the videos you make just got back into photoshop and never knew it’s true power till now .
You’re welcome, Ray!
Muchas gracias por este tutorial!
De nada!
Thank you! I never fail to be amazed at what Photoshop can help me do.
You’re welcome, Fran!
Perfect timing for me to see this! I’ve been working on a photo that needed this exact treatment! Thanks a bunch!
You’re welcome, Lynn!
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.
Thank you, Tommy!
Thank you Jesus, this was very useful, like your other tutorials, too!
You’re welcome, Klara!
Awesome Stuff great tutorial
Thank you!
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
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!
Excellent tutorial. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Joy!
Very Nice Tutorial Jesus! Your instructions so methodical and easy to follow. Thanks for this tip.
You’re welcome, Rengesh!
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?
cyberray50, the image is an Adobe Stock photo and I cannot share it because of licensing issues. But you can download a free watermarked version to play around with if you like.
https://stock.adobe.com/images/couple-stands-in-fron-of-old-bridge-in-mountains/165852596
https://stock.adobe.com/images/man-pull-woman-to-get-in-time-for-train/195056421
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!