Photoshop Friday - early

Since I am taking off Thur-Mon for Thanksgiving, I thought I would jump to a photoshop Friday early.


At the risk of using a friend's image without permission, I go forth with a photoshop tutorial today.

Lens Blur tool (DIY depth of focus)

Jason is, in my opinion, a great photographer; I really like the way he captures people and feelings. He recently posted this engagement picture that he took. I really like the perspective and the lighting is superb. Great capture. This image is perfect for illustrating a photoshop'd focal length blur.

This is when I wish I could do a video tutorial, because it can get a bit laborious describing and reading this explanation... so hopefully you can bare with me.

First I copy the layer (command-J) on the mac
then I make a layer mask.
I then use the gradient tool and drag a line through the mask.
Now your layers palette might look something like this...
click on the part of the layer that I have placed the big black arrow on and go to the Filter menu and down to Blur and on to Lens Blur
my settings on Lens blur look like this:
Click on the image between the faces of the couple. You should notice that their faces come into focus and the rest becomes blurred.
(feel free to click around a couple of times at different spots and notice how the area you click becomes focused while leaving the rest blurred (according to the layer mask))

Alright... I hope you're still with me.

Click on the OK button and now on the layers palette drag the layer mask to the trash and hit the DELETE button, not apply.
Make another layer mask and then you can start to paint away the blurring that you don't want. Change the opacity of your brush to give it a gradual look or use your gradient tool again if you like.
Your layers palette might look something like this now.
Here is my final product... I also added just a little bit of darkening vignette to give more attention to the couple.
Again, great picture to work with here... allowing a some fun post-processing.

Thanks Jason for allowing me to alter your image.

Pick of the day:
This image is taken from Fort Photo's flickr collection. He has some real gems.