How do you blur the background from an image?

[chrismay99]

Sorry guys this may be super amateurish, but hey I'm an amateur.  I want to blur the background from an image/picture to focus on one particular image.  How is this accomplished?  I appreciate the consideration and patience.  

[crabtrem]

One method to consider is to use the selection brush. Select your foreground element (the easiest to select), refine it, keep the selection.  Invert the selection from the select menu.  Add a blur filter.

(not my photo)

 

[Lee D]

Hi chrismay99,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

You may want to take a look at our video tutorials on Adding Bokeh and Swirling Bokeh, these should help you out.

 

Hope this helps

 

L

[chrismay99]

Thank you both!

[chanelle927]

Hi there, 

 

New question. I went to the below video tutorial and followed the steps, except the blur effect applied to the main image on and not the duplicate i created, I even selected the duplicate layer and then added the layer but for some reason, all of my effects are applied to the main image. Help? Suggestions? What am i doing wrong?

 

Thanks!

Hi chrismay99,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

You may want to take a look at our video tutorials on Adding Bokeh and Swirling Bokeh, these should help you out.

 

Hope this helps

 

L

[RonBates312]

I usually just blur them out in the editing process like this http://www.paintshoppro.com/en/pages/blur-images/ 
Mainly because I didn't learn yet that well how to shoot a photo with a blurring background but also because like this I can choose manually what to blur :)