Easy way to blur background photos on PHOTOSHOP

Background ruins perfect picture. I understand a situation where by you would like to take some pictures in an exposed area where two or more people are (crowd), party or a carnival and you have no choice than to take the shot with people or anything behind you (background).
To fix this problem, you will need to take the background out of focus using widest aperture that your lens allow. we are going to use the PHOTOSHOP solution to create a full blurred version of your picture problem by combining with the original using a hand painted mask, then the subject will be left untouched (sharp) and the background will be blurred.

Steps on how to blur your background photos on Photoshop

First, launch your Photoshop software. After the software has finished loading, load a photo you will like to blur by clicking CTRL + O, or you can go on the left side of the panel and click on “Files” , then click on “open”. After adding a photo which you want to make the background blur, now click on “select” at the top panel and click on “select and mask” or you can click ALT+CTRL+R  to do it quickly. after you’ve selected and mask, make sure your picture is on overlay. if it not on overlay, check the circled part to see where to change to overlay. the image color will display red (see image below).

now select the quick selection tools on the left side of your panel, select all the places you don’t  want the blur to fall on. to deselect check the top of the panel you’ll see a + and – sign , the + sign is to select the area you don’t want the blur to apply on and the – sign is to select the part you want the blur to apply on. after selecting, click on the show edge at the top right side of your control panel, that will make the whole picture turn red again, do not worry , that the procedure. now at the same right side of your control panel, locate the  “edge detection” and then slide the radius to ( 9 pix ). You will then see some outline in the image where you don’t want the blurry part.( see image below to locate the quick selection tools, + and – , overlay, edge detection and radius)

finding this interesting and easy? Yes! Now, on the right side on your panel, scroll down and locate the “output setting” the click on ” decontaminated color” and make sure it on 100% and make sure the “output to” is on new layer with layer mas. after that , click on the okay button and the mask will be created (see image below).

after the mask layer is created, click on your background layer at the right side of your panel. then , right click on it and then duplicate the layer. after duplicating it, locate the lasso tools at the left side of your panel and click on it, trace out the selected area you don’t want the blur to apply to, you don’t need to be perfect when tracing this part, just make sure the marks are not to close to the object and not to far from the object which you are trying to trace out ( see image below).

Now, click on  the “edit” option at the top left of the control panel, after clicking , locate “FILL” or click on SHIFT+ F5. some options will pop up, just make sure the content is on “content-aware”, tick the box color adaption, blending mode should be normal and capacity should be 100% then hit the okay button. wait for the progress to fill. after filling, click on the select option at the top of your panel, then click on the deselect or click on CTRL + D.

We are almost done here, now click on “filter” at the top of the control panel, in the options, locate “Blur” then “click on the lens blur. After the software has loaded the blurring part panel, at the right side of the panel, select the radius and make it 100%. then click on Ok. Then the blur will proceed and will automatically apply itself.

And yeah, we are done! Your background has been blurred and now, your only selected part is focused. to add  some touch or effect to it, go to the button right side of your panel and click on the “create new file or adjustment level” after that , click on the color look up and the a pop up option will display, change the 3D LUT FILE  to FALL COLORS (see image below).

To save the image, click on file at the left corner of the panel, click on EXPORT then click on quick export as PNG, a pop up will display to put the location and name of the document the click on the save button.

If this helpful to you, drop a comment and share, and don’t forget to subscribe and follow!

I recommend you to read this also :

how to save your work as PDF on Coreldraw
6 tips to take sharp photos
4 photography tips to improve your photo