Best Way To Blur Background In Photoshop

Have you ever wondered how some photos have blurry backgrounds? Well, you don’t need an expensive camera or lens to get that look. In this video, I’m gonna show you the best way to blur backgrounds in Photoshop. Let’s get started.

So there are a few tools that you have in Photoshop to actually do blurring. and in this case, blur the background. I’m gonna show you a couple here that are pretty good, especially if you’re a photographer. So this photo was taken outside and it was a bright day. So I had the aperture turned down and that’s why you see the exposure the way it is and also the background is not blurry. You may like this photo the way it is, and that’s fine too, but for this tutorial, we’re gonna show you how to blur this background.

How To Make a Selection – Best Way To Blur Background In Photoshop

First, what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna duplicate the original image. I’m gonna press Control+J on Windows and Command+J on a Mac twice. And I’m going to rename this base copyright here as Background. And a layer above it, I’m gonna rename it Subject. The first thing we have to do is make a selection out of the subject. And I’m going to use the object selection tool. And I’m going to draw a rectangle around the subject and Photoshop does a pretty good job. And right here in this area, there’s some space here that I need to reselect. I’m gonna hold the Alt or Option and make another rectangle right there. It selected that area. And this selection does not have to be perfect. We’re going to just make it good enough so that we don’t have any problems with the edges and the blurring on the background. And then on the Subject layer, I’m going to come down here to the Create New Layer Mask icon and create my mask. If I press Alt on Windows, Option on Mac and click on my layer mask, the white areas are revealed, the black areas are hidden. Pressing Alt or Option, I’m back to the subject.

So now what I wanna do is I wanna make a selection out of this layer mask. So if I hold Command and click on the layer mask, here is my selection. I’m gonna disable the subject layer and click on the background layer. So now with the background layer selected, I’m going to come up here to Select, Modify, Expand, I wanna expand the selection by 5 pixels. We only have five pixels away from the subject. Say OK. And now I’m gonna zoom in here and you can see that there’s the space. And that’s to help so that there are no halos once we make the blur. You don’t wanna see no halos around the subject due to adding the blur.

And now with the background selected, I’m gonna come up to Edit, Content-Aware Fill, here’s the Content-Aware Fill dialogue box. And you can see it did a pretty good job over here on the right. I have a video on using the Content-Aware Fill dialogue up in the card. So I’m gonna say okay and there it filled it in. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. We will use this. So now I’m gonna remove the selection with Command+D and enable my subject layer. I’m gonna right-click on the background layer and say Convert to Smart Object. And the reason we have a smart object is so that when we apply the blur, we can come back in and change it.

Tilt-Shift Blur – Best Way To Blur Background In Photoshop

And so the first blur that I’m gonna show you is called the tilt-shift. So I’m gonna name this background layer Tilt Shift, and I’m gonna come up here to Filter, Blur Gallery, Tilt-Shift. So I’m gonna zoom in here a little bit, and this point down here is in focus and so are these lines. There’s one on top and there’s one on the bottom, in between there it’s all on focus. And as you go up, there’s a dotted line. So in between the sawed line and the dotted line, it’s a gradual change in focus. And same with the bottom. There is a dotted line down there and so from that sawed line to the dotted line down there, it’s a gradual focus and all the way out of focus at the bottom. So what we can do is pull this point all the way down to her feet ’cause usually when you have a lens and it’s blurring your foreground or your bottom part of your image is in focus, so now what we have is is we have areas where it’s gradual out of focus, and we can adjust this blur up here. I’m gonna take it all the way down to zero and just bring it up a little bit. I’m gonna bring it up too far and that’s to show you that the blur is gradual as it goes towards the top. So I’m gonna bring this down, make it look a little bit more realistic.

So that is the tilt-shift, and if I say OK. And as you can see, it’s created a smart filter and it’s the tilt-shift blur gallery that we used. Hello, by the way, I’m Charles. Welcome to the channel that helps you get started with Photoshop, Lightroom, and photography. If you’re finding this video useful and you want more tutorials just like this, make sure to subscribe to the channel and click that bell notification so that you’re the first when we notify when we release brand new content every single week. So I’m gonna show you two more ways.

Gaussian Blur – Best Way To Blur Background In Photoshop

I’m going to make a copy of this layer. I’m gonna right-click and say, New Smart Object Via Copy, I’m gonna disable the layer below it that I used, and I’m gonna call this Gaussian Blur. And I’m gonna delete this filter. Now, there’s another way I could’ve blurred this, and you may choose this if you like, but there is Box blur, Gaussian blur, and these aren’t in the blur gallery, but if I choose, say, Gaussian blur, and I just happen to have this set at 7.2 and you can see the whole thing is blurred. If I say OK, and I’m going to add a layer mask down here, hit the new layer icon, and now I wanna paint with black with B for the Brush tool and paint black to hide the blur effect down here.

So I’m just showing you another way that this may have been a way that was done before all these blur gallery tools here. But that’s another way that you could do it. And you may like the other way because you can choose points and have it choose your blur instead of actually having to do a layer mask.

Field Blur – Best Way To Blur Background In Photoshop

Okay, let me show you one more. Okay, and I’m gonna make a copy of this, I’m gonna say New Smart Object Via Copy, I’m gonna disable the other Gaussian blur and call this Field Blur. And I’m gonna delete S filter and also delete the layer mask. And come up here to Filter, Blur Gallery, Field Blur. Okay, now this one you can choose a couple of points. I’m gonna choose a point there, and I’m going to choose another point at her feet. So I’ve selected the point that is at her feet and I’m going to take the blur down all the way. So now this area down here in the bottom where this point is is in focus. And then what I can do is I can move this point around anywhere I like and I can add more blur. See, I just added some more blur.

And that’s another way that I can blur the background, in this case, using field blur. And if I say OK. Here’s the field blur before and after. Turn that off. Here’s the Gaussian blur before and after. Here is the tilt-shift before and after. So now the question of the day, which of these blur techniques did you find useful? Let me know in the comments below.

See my photography website here 👉 https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com

Learn more about the content-aware fill tool in photoshop here 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/photoshop-content-aware-fill/