Challenge Image: Blur the Background

Challenge Image: Blur the Background

Challenge Image: Blur the Background In this lesson, we re going to work on a challenge image that was submitted by a Masters Academy member. The image features a little boy with some balloons and it was shot so that everything is in focus. We re going to use some techniques to blur the background, making the boy and the balloons stand out more. We re also going to use this image to learn how to deal with subjects or objects that are partially in the shade and partially in the sun. With this image, we re going to correct some problems caused by mixed lighting conditions and we re going to blur the background. We re going to start by dragging the image to the Photoshop icon and, because it s a raw file, it s going to open in Adobe Camera Raw. Normally, I would do my initial adjustments in Adobe Lightroom, but when working on an image that is not my own, I use Camera Raw. Know that Lightroom s Develop Module contains all of the same sliders and settings as Camera Raw, so you can follow along using either program. Adjust the overall image in Camera Raw Adjustments to correct for the contrasty tone In Camera Raw, we re going to start by adjusting the image as a whole and then we ll move on to correct localized areas. I sometimes like to begin by clicking the Auto button that is located above the Basic sliders. In this case, the Auto setting was able to even out the tone a bit and bring some detail back in the part of the boy s face that was too bright. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 2

The Auto setting (circled) was applied and it automatically moved the sliders to improve the tone of the image. This serves as a good starting point. This image has a lot of contrast so we re going to adjust the Shadows slider to control how much detail we can see in the shadow areas. We ll move this slider up fairly high, but not high enough that we re bringing a lot of detail back into the person s legs on the left side of the frame. We don t want to draw extra attention there. We ll also adjust the Contrast slider, moving it down a bit in order to make the lighting seem a little less harsh. This is something that I will sometimes to do with images that were shot in the mid-day sun. Make the colors pop Next, we re going to adjust the color in the image by using the Vibrance slider. The balloons make the image really fun and we d like those to be nice and colorful, so we ll crank this slider up quite a bit. Adjust the color To fine-tune the overall color in the image, we re going to work with the white balance. The Temperature and Tint sliders collectively control the white balance of the image but we re instead going to use the White Balance Eyedropper, which can be found in the Tool Bar above the image window. In Lightroom, the White Balance Eyedropper is located above all of the adjustment sliders in the Develop Module. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 3

We ll use the eyedropper to click on an area in the image that should be neutral, having no color. I always look for an area that looks like it should be white or gray. With this image, however, we need to be careful that we re not clicking on an area that is heavily shaded. That s because the light in the shady areas is overly blue, ABOVE: The White Balance Eyedropper is found in the Tool Bar. LEFT: The eyedropper is being used to click on the sunny part of a white balloon. so clicking on one of these areas with the White Balance Eyedropper is going to make the image overly yellow. Most of the image is in the sun, so this is the area that we want to correct for. We ll click on part of a white balloon that is lit by the sun and, when we do, the Temperature and Tint sliders will automatically move to color-correct the image. Learn how to deal with mixed lighting conditions When you have an object (like the white balloon) that is partially lit by the sun and partially in the shade, it can be useful in helping you deal with the mixed lighting conditions. Let s look at the settings for the Temperature and Tint sliders. Because we clicked on a sunny area, these sliders and numbers are both showing the appropriate white balance for the sunny part of the image. Now let s use the White Balance Eyedropper to click on the part of that balloon that s in the shade and see how it affects the Temperature and Tint settings. The Temperature slider moved far toward the yellow side and that s because it is trying to absorb all of the blue light contained in the shadows. The Tint slider moved to the right, but only by a tiny amount. The White Balance Eyedropper was used to click on a sunny white area and you can see how that affected the Temperature and Tint sliders. The White Balance Eyedropper was used to click on a shady white area. You can see that the Temperature slider moved far toward yellow in order to compensate. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 4

In the future, when we re trying to color correct localized areas that are in the shadows, we know that we need to move the Temperature slider pretty far to the right and the Tint slider just a tiny amount to the right. Adjust isolated areas in Camera Raw Correct the bright part of the hat Now, we re going to adjust isolated areas of the image and we re going to start with the boy s hat. The left side of the hat is so bright that it s starting to lose a little detail and I find this to be distracting. To correct this area, we re going to use the Adjustment Brush, which can be found in the Tool Bar above the image window. In Lightroom, it can be found above the adjustment sliders in the Develop Module. When we activate the Adjustment Brush, a series of Adjustment Brush sliders will appear on the right side of the interface and these sliders will remember whatever settings you last used with the brush. To zero out these sliders and return them to their default settings, click on the little menu in the top right corner of the slider panel and choose to Reset Local Correction Settings. In Lightroom, you can reset the sliders by double-clicking on the heading above the set of sliders. Before we start to paint using the Adjustment Brush, we re going to turn on the Mask check box, which is located below the adjustment sliders. With this setting on, we can paint over the image and, instead of seeing the effect of the adjustment that we have dialed in, we re going to see a blatant This part of the hat is so bright that it s starting to lose detail. We ll use the Adjustment Brush to fix this. Reset the sliders to their default positions by clicking the little menu and choosing this option. The Mask setting will place an overlay in the area where you paint with the Adjustment Brush. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 5

color. In our case, the color is set to green. Yours may be set to red. This will make it easier to see where we ve painted. We re also going to make sure that the Density and Flow settings are set to 100. This will ensure that we re painting with 100% strength. We ll set the Feather slider somewhere in the middle so that we ll be painting with a semi-soft brush. In this instance, it will also be useful to turn on the Auto Mask check box, which will cause the brush to only place paint on the areas of similar color and tone as the area directly beneath the central cross-hair in the brush. This will help us to prevent overspill and accurately paint in a specific area. LEFT: The Auto Mask setting was off when we painted with Adjustment Brush and you can see that it applied the overlay everywhere. RIGHT: The Auto Mask setting was turned on while painting with the Adjustment Brush and it only applied the overlay in the areas matching the color and tone found beneath the crosshair in the center of the brush tip. After painting over the bright part of the hat with the Auto Mask setting on, we may need switch to a tiny brush, turn the Auto Mask check box off and then paint in any small areas that need manual work. We only want to paint on the left side of the white part of the hat because this is the area we want to correct. We ll use a soft brush to make sure that there is a gradual transition between the area we want to affect and the rest of the white area. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 6

Now we can turn off the Mask check box so that we re no longer viewing the colored overlay. We ll move back to the adjustment sliders and use them to darken the area we just isolated. We ll use the Exposure slider because it controls the greatest brightness range and gives us a more natural look than what we d get by moving the Highlights or Whites sliders down. In this case, we ll bring the Exposure slider down by nearly an entire stop. The Exposure slider is being used to darken the bright part of the hat, bringing some of the detail back. Correcting the shadows part of the boy s face Whenever you have an image with a blue sky on a sunny day, the shadow areas are going to have a blue cast to them and the highlight areas are going to have a white or yellow color. In this image, there is a shadow covering part of the boy s face and it s giving the area a blue color cast. We ll use the Adjustment Brush to correct this area as well. Because we just used the Adjustment Brush to fix part of the hat, we need to specify that we re making a brand new adjustment. This will ensure that the changes we make Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 7

to the face will not also affect the part of the hat that we previously isolated. To do this, we ll use the circles at the top of the Adjustment Brush sliders to choose New. Because the sliders are still set to the positions we used for fixing the hat, we ll reset them to their default positions by clicking on the menu in the top right corner of the panel and choosing to Reset Local Correction Settings. In order to make a new adjustment using the Adjustment Brush, the option at the top of the adjustment panel must be set to New. If we start to move the sliders right away, nothing will happen because we have not yet used the brush to isolate the area we want to affect. We ll again turn on the Mask check box so that we can see an overlay in the area where we paint. Note that you can change the color of this overlay by clicking on the color swatch to the right of the Mask check box. We ll set the Feather slider very high so that we use a really soft brush. This will create a gradual transition between the part of the face we want to affect and the part that we don t. We ll also turn on the Auto Mask check box in hopes of having less overspill when we go to paint. Using a large brush, we ll paint over the shadowed area of the boy s face, making sure that the crosshair in the center of the brush stays within the skin area. The Adjustment Brush was used to paint over the shadowed part of the boy s face. There was some overspill in the hat area that we ll need to remove. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 8

In our example, the colored overlay shows that we got some overspill into the hat area and part of the boy s clothes. We can correct this by changing the brush setting to Erase (at the top of the adjustment panel) and painting over the area that should not have the adjustment. The Adjustment Brush is set to Erase (circled) and we are painting to remove the overlay from the hat. This is an area that we do not want to be affected by the adjustment. Now that we have the shadow part of the face isolated, we can turn off the Mask check box and start to work with the adjustment sliders. To lighten the area, we ll first move the Shadows slider up a bit. This has a small effect, but it s not significant enough. We ll also move the Contrast slider down, as this can be helpful in evening out tones in images shot in the mid-day sun. Next, we ll increase the Exposure slider, and this does make a significant brightness change. The problem is that the shadowed part of the face is now brighter, but it doesn t match the sunny part of the face because it still has a blue color cast. Previously, we learned that in order to match the color in the shadows to the color in the sun, we need to move the Temperature slider pretty far to the right and move the Tint slider just slightly to the right. That s what we ll do here, and we can see that the tone of the boy s face now better matches the sunny area. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 9

With the shadowed part of the boy s face isolated, the adjustment sliders are being used to correct the tone and color. To make the color match that of the sunny area, the Temperature slider was moved far to the right and the Tint slider was moved slightly to the right. To see a before and after view of the change we just made, we ll toggle the button that looks like a little set of sliders at the bottom right corner of the image window. When we do this, we can tell that the adjustment was also applied to part of the boy s face that was already in the sun, and we don t want that. We ll need to further refine the area that s being affected. Toggle this button to see a before and after view of the adjustments. Because we just clicked on the before-and-after view button, it made it so that the adjustment is no longer active. To make it active again, we ll click on the little pin that represents the adjustment within the image window. Then, we ll scroll down to the bottom of the adjustment sliders until we find the Range Mask menu. This setting will allow us to further isolate areas based on color or brightness. We want to isolate an area based on brightness, so we ll set the Range Mask menu Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 10

to Luminance. When we do, the Luminance Range slider will appear below the menu. Here, we can use the black and white sliders on either side to limit the brightness range that will be affected by the adjustment. We do not want the really bright areas to receive the adjustment, so we ll move the white slider to the left a bit. The Luminance Range slider will limit the tonal range affected by the Adjustment Brush. Any time you work with the Exposure slider, it s going to affect the entire image, and you need to be careful of that. This is different from the Highlights or Whites sliders, which limit the adjustment to a smaller range of tones. Because of this, you need to be mindful when increasing the Exposure slider and check to see if the darkest portion of the area you re working on is no longer close to black. If this happens, you can compensate for it by moving the Blacks slider to the left, which will darken only the darkest areas. Alternatively, you can use the Luminance Range Mask slider, moving the black slider to the right just a tad so that the brightening adjustment does not affect the blacks. After brightening an area using the Exposure slider, the black Luminance Range slider can be moved slightly to the right in order to protect any solid black tones from the brightening effect. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 11

Adjusting the eyes We re going to adjust the boy s eyes using another instance of the Adjustment Brush. At the top of the Adjustment Brush panel, we ll be sure to click the New option so that we are creating a new adjustment. We ll set the Feather slider to a low setting because the eye has a relatively hard edge and we ll size the brush so that it just covers the round shape of the eye. With the Mask check box turned on, we ll click on the eye and we ll see the colored overlay appear over the iris. We ll do the same thing with the other eye. Next, we ll set the Adjustment Brush setting to Erase and we ll use a smaller, relatively hard brush and paint, removing the colored mask from the eyelids. (We only want the adjustment to affect the iris.) LEFT: The Adjustment Brush is being used to paint over the iris. RIGHT: The Erase setting is being use to remove the effect from the eyelids. Now, we can turn off the Mask check box and move on to use the adjustment sliders. These adjustment sliders are set to the positions we used last, so we ll click on the little menu in the top right corner of the adjustment panel and we ll choose to Reset Local Correction Settings. This will return all of the sliders to their default positions. When it comes to eyes, I will bring the Whites slider up if the eyes are in the shade like they are in this case. This will lighten up the brightest part of the eyes. Then, we ll increase the Clarity slider in order to bring out the details in the eyes, being careful not to overdo the effect. We ll also make the eyes a little more colorful using the Saturation slider. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 12

If you ever want to make the eyes (or any area) more colorful than is possible with the Saturation slider, you can force color into an area by using the Color setting, located below the adjustment sliders. When you click on the color swatch, the Color Picker will appear and here is where you can choose what color you want to be forced into the area. When it comes to eyes, it s best to be very conservative, choosing a color that is not too vibrant. This will ensure that the effect still looks natural. The Color setting is being used to force a color into the adjustment area. After clicking on the color swatch, the Color Picker appears and we are choosing the color we want to use. Reducing noise One thing that I notice when zoomed in on the boy s face is that there is a lot of noise in that area. This can happen any time you have something that is really dark and then brighten it significantly. To fix this, we ll return to the adjustment where we lightened the boy s face. Whenever you adjust part of an image with the Adjustment Brush, a pin will appear on the picture, representing that adjustment. Click on one of these pins to make the adjustment active again. We ll click on the pin that represents the adjustment to the boy s face and all of the adjustment sliders will appear again so that we can further make changes to them. We ll use the Noise Reduction slider, moving it to the right until we see a good improvement in the face area. (Note that it s best to be zoomed in on an image when applying Noise Reduction.) Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 13

At this point, we have made all of the adjustments that we re going to make in Camera Raw, so it s time to move the image into Photoshop. We ll click the Open Image button in the bottom right corner of the Camera Raw interface and the image will be opened in Photoshop. Blur the background in Photoshop Start with a selection With the image open in Photoshop, we re now going to blur the background. In order to do that, we need to first isolate the subject by means of a selection. We ll click on the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Select and Mask. This will bring up all of the settings related to the Select and Mask feature. The view we have of the image will depend on what the View menu is set to. In the video example, we have the View menu set to Onion Skin and the Transparency slider is set to 20%. The Select and Mask interface is shown above. You can change the look of the preview via the View menu (circled). Above, we are looking at the image in the Onion Skin view with a Transparency setting of 20%. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 14

The tool at the top of the Tool Bar (on the left side of the interface) is the Quick Selection Tool and it is active by default. We ll use this tool to paint over the part of the image that we want selected, which is the boy in this case. We ll also select the balloons that are close to the boy. When doing this, we ll take care to keep the center crosshair of the brush within the areas of color that we want selected, as this will prevent overspill. The Quick Selection Tool is being used to paint over the parts of the image we want selected. You can change your view in the middle of making a selection, and that s what we ll do here since the Onion Skin view is not giving us a good visual representation of what is selected. We ll change the View menu to Overlay and set the Opacity slider to around 50%. This will place a colored overlay over all areas that are NOT selected. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 15

If we accidentally select areas that should not be selected, we can hold down the Option key (Alt on Win) and paint over those areas in order to remove the selection. As long as you are painting with the Option key (Alt on Win) held down, you will be subtracting from the selection. The Quick Selection Tool will do a good job in some areas, but it may have trouble making an accurate selection of areas that are fuzzy or hairy. The boy s hat and shirt are examples of this. We ll need to take additional steps in order to correctly select these areas. If the Edge Detection setting category is not already expanded on the left side of the interface, we ll click to expand it. This will reveal the Radius slider. The Radius slider allows us to give Photoshop control over a certain amount of the selection edge. If we set this slider to one pixel, Photoshop will be able to control a one-pixel radius around the edge of the selection. We ll move this slider up while watching the effect on the selection edge. In this case, we ll set this Radius slider to 9. To visually see how much area the Radius slider is affecting, make sure the View menu is set to Overlay and then turn on the Show Edge check box. The outline that does not have the overlay tells us what area Photoshop has control over in selecting the edge. LEFT: The Edge Detection category is expanded and we re setting the Radius slider to 9 px. RIGHT: The View Edge check box is turned on so that we can see the effect of the Radius slider and what areas Photoshop will have control over the selection. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 16

Our Radius setting of 9 is good for most of the subject, but the fuzz from the hat is still extending beyond the selection. We ll need to manually select this area and we can do that by choosing the second tool down in the Tool Bar. When we paint with this tool, we are giving Photoshop control of individual areas and how the edge should be selected. We ll use this tool to paint over the edge of the hat, making sure to encompass all of the fuzz that extends from it. When we re done painting over the fuzz, we ll turn off the Show Edge check box in order to see the result. We can always change the View menu to a different setting in order to best see the edges of the selection. In this case, we don t need to be meticulously precise because the background is going to be blurred. The Refine Edge Brush Tool is being used to paint over the areas where the fuzz is extending from the hat. This is giving Photoshop control over the selection in these areas. Near the bottom of the settings panel on the left, we ll expand the Output Settings category and make sure that the Output To menu is set to Selection. Then we ll click OK to exit the Select and Mask feature. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 17

After setting the Output To menu to Selection, we exited the Select and Mask feature and ended up with the selection you can see at left. Place selection contents on its own layer Photoshop s main interface will return and we can see the selection that we created. This is the area we want to keep in crisp focus so we d like it to be placed on its own layer. We ll drag the image layer thumbnail to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel in order to create a layer duplicate. Then, with the selection still active, we ll click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will take the active selection and apply it to the layer mask. The area that was selected will be visible and the rest of the layer will be hidden by the mask. The background layer was duplicated and a layer mask was added to the duplicate. When the layer mask was added, the active selection was applied to the mask. We can turn off the visibility of the bottom layer so that we can see the isolated subject on a transparent background. If necessary, we can use the Brush Tool to refine the mask, painting with black to hide areas of the layer and painting with white to reveal areas of the layer. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 18

Now, we ll turn off the visibility of the top layer and turn ON the visibility of the original, background layer. We ll rename this bottom layer to Tilt Shift Blurred because that s the filter that we re about to apply to it. At this point, we will convert this bottom layer into a Smart Object by clicking on the Filter menu and choosing Convert for Smart Filters. Blur the background layer With the bottom layer active, we ll click on the Filter menu and choose Blur Gallery > Tilt-Shift. The Blur Gallery will come to the forefront and the Tilt-Shift settings will be expanded on the right side. Some lines will be overlaid on the image and these will control where the blurring happens. We can drag the center circle to position the entire blur field and we ll position it so that it s centered on the picture. There are two solid gray lines outside of the circle and it s the area between these lines that will remain in sharp focus. We can click and drag on these lines to reposition them, therefore determining what area of the image should remain in sharp focus. We ll position the lines so that the bottom portion of the image is in focus, up until the part where the boy s shoulders start. Remember, this is the background layer and it s ok if the boy becomes blurred here. We have another layer that contains the sharp version of the boy. There are two dashed lines outside of the solid lines and everything outside of these lines will get the full strength of the blurring that we re going to apply. We ll click and drag on these lines to determine where that full blur should begin. We re going to position this top dashed line right at the edge of the trampoline so that everything beyond that point gets fully blurred. The center circle has a dial surrounding it and this dial can be used to adjust how much blur we have. We re going to set this dial to around 80, making the background appear pretty darn soft. When we re done fine-tuning the position and strength of the blur, we ll click the OK button above the image window. This will close the Blur Gallery and take us back to the main Photoshop interface. We ll turn on the visibility of the top layer so that we have the sharp subject on the blurred background. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 19

Inside the Blur Gallery, a Tilt-Shift Blur is being applied. The lines on the image can be moved to determine where the blur should be applied. Everything inside the solid gray lines will be sharp. Everything outside of the dashed gray lines will be completely blurred. There are still a few issues with the result, however. The first thing that I notice is that there is a glowing halo around the boy s head and part of his shoulders. That s because the background layer, which also contained the boy, was blurred and that blur effect extended beyond the boy s hat and sleeves. After blurring the background, we turned on the visibility of the layer containing the sharp version of the boy. We can see that there are some halos around his head that resulted from the blurring and we ll need to fix those. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 20

Retouch to eliminate halos To fix it, we re going to turn off the visibility of the top layer and make sure that the bottom layer is active. Because that bottom layer is a smart object, we ll double-click on its thumbnail in order to open it as a separate Photoshop document. Here, we need to retouch the edges of the boy s head so that it doesn t extend as far out. In an odd way of saying it, we need to use retouching tools to shrink the head. If we do this, then we can re-blur the layer and the blurred head will not be visible behind the layer with the sharp version of the boy. We don t need to do a super accurate retouching job in order to get the results that we want here, so we re going to activate the Spot Healing Brush. We ll use it to paint over the entirety of the boy s head and, when we release the mouse button, Photoshop will try to fill in the painted area with content based on its surroundings. In our case, it filled the area in with some jumbled content from the surrounding house, but that s ok because the orange from the hat was completely removed. We ll go to the File menu, choose Save and then return to the original Photoshop document. The smart object layer will update and we ll turn on the visibility of that top layer with the sharp version of the boy. We can see that there is no longer an orange halo behind the boy s head. LEFT: The Spot Healing Brush is being used to paint over the boy s head in the background layer. CENTER: The result of the Spot Healing Brush is messy, but it served its purpose because it removed the orange hat that was creating the halo. RIGHT: You can see that the halo is gone. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 21

We ll examine the document further and we can see that there are some additional glowy halos in other areas. One of them is extending from the yellow balloon that the boy is holding. Again, we will return to the document containing the smart object layer and we ll use our retouching tools to retouch the balloon so that the yellow does not extend out as far as it currently does. Remember, this retouching job does not need to be perfect by any means because the layer is going to be completely blurred. We just want to remove the color that is causing the halo. When we re done, we ll again go to the File menu, choose Save and then return to the original document where the smart object layer will be updated. LEFT: There is a bit of a glowing halo extending from the right side of the balloon. RIGHT: The background layer is being retouched to remove the right side of the balloon. After saving the results from retouching the balloon, you can see that there is no longer a halo extending out from it. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 22

Add noise to make the background look more natural All of the unnatural-looking halos have been removed, but there s another problem that we need to tackle. When we zoom in on the image, we can see some noise in the boy s face and shirt, but there is no noise in the blurred background. In order for the image to look natural, there should be an equal amount of noise all over the image. To achieve this, we ll activate the background layer and double-click on the name of the smart filter, Blur Gallery. When we double-click on the filter name, the Blur Gallery will reappear and we can see all of the settings that are currently being applied. On the right side of the interface, there are several tabs that contain groups of settings. One of those tabs is labeled Noise. We ll click on that to see the Noise settings. The first setting is the Amount slider, and in order to see any effect, we need to bring this slider up. I like to start off by bringing it up quite a bit so that I get a good idea of what the noise looks like. The next setting is the Size slider and we ll move this back and forth while comparing how granular the noise looks compared to the natural noise in the image. We want the noise in the We re adjusting the Noise settings within the Blur Gallery in order to match the noise in the blurry area to the noise in the sharp area. two areas to look as similar as possible. The roughness slider controls how much variation there is in the noise. The higher the setting, the more variation in the noise. The Color slider is something we re not going to use with this image, but it would add specks of color to the noise. Once we ve adjusted all of the sliders, we ll return to the Amount slider, bringing it all the way down and then gradually bringing it up until the noise best matches the noise in the face and clothes of the boy. When we re done, we ll click the OK button at the top of the Blur Gallery. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 23

Fix uneven blurring Let s move on to tackle the next problem. The Tilt-Shift Blur is based on lines that I placed on the image. It s not actually based on the three-dimensional quality of the picture. Because of this, some of the blurring does not look natural. For example, the top of the red balloon behind the boy is blurry, but the bottom of that same balloon is sharp. Both parts are the same distance from the camera so they should both have an equal amount of blurring. In order to correct this, we re going to need a second layer with blurring applied. We need to duplicate the background layer, but we need to do so in a special way. If we simply duplicate it by dragging it to the New Layer icon or by using the keyboard shortcut, it s going to create a second instance of the same smart object and anything we do to one instance of the smart object will affect all the other instances as well. We don t want that. We want the two layers to be completely independent of one another. To duplicate a smart object this way, we ll make sure the layer is active in the Layers panel and then we ll go to the Layer menu and choose Smart Objects > New Smart Object via Copy. The Tilt-Shift blur effect created some uneven blurring in the background area. Now, we re going to make sure that the duplicate we just created is the active layer and we ll double-click on the Blur Gallery filter that is listed below that layer. This will re-open the Blur Gallery with all of the previous settings applied. We need to change these settings for this new layer. All of the different types of blur settings are listed on the right. The Tilt-Shift check box is currently turned on, Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 24

with a slider setting of 79 px. We re going to turn OFF the Tilt Shift check box and turn ON the Field Blur check box, clicking the disclosure arrow to the left of the word Field Blur in order to expand the settings. Now, we re going to set the Blur slider to start out at the same setting that was used for the Tilt-Shift Blur, which was 79. Then, we ll gradually bring the slider down until the amount of blurring on the balloons looks natural. The noise settings will be the same as when we set them last, which is what we want. We ll click the OK button at the top of the interface to exit the Blur Gallery. We ll also rename the layer to Full Blur so that we remember what the layer s purpose is. Within the Blur Gallery, the Field Blur settings are being applied to this duplicate of the background layer. At this point, we have three layers. The bottom layer contains the Tilt-Shift Blur. The middle layer blurs the entire image and the top layer contains the subject (the boy), which is sharp. We need to work on the middle layer, adding a layer mask so that we can limit where the blur effect will be applied. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 25

We want to start with a mask that will hide the entire layer so we ll hold down the Option key (Alt on Win) while clicking the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will add a mask that is filled with black, hiding the entire layer. Then, we ll activate the Brush Tool and use a large, soft-edged brush to paint on the mask, determining where the blurring effect should be visible. We ll be painting on the mask with white in order to reveal parts of the layer. We ll paint over the parts of the balloons in the background that should be blurry, making them look more natural. The layer with the full blur was masked and we are painting on the mask with white to reveal the blurriness in the background areas. We also want to blur the legs that are extending into the left side of the frame, but we need to be careful that we don t also blur the pink balloon that s in the foreground. To protect the pink balloon, we ll use the Quick Selection Tool to make a selection of it. Then, we ll go to the Select menu and choose Inverse. This will give us the opposite, where everything EXCEPT for the pink balloon is selected. We can now continue to paint with white on the legs, knowing that the selection is going to protect the balloon from being affected. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 26

Here, we have an active selection of everything except for the pink balloon. This allows us to paint on objects right next to the balloon without affecting the balloon itself. Fix glowing halos The next issue that we need to address is additional halos that have cropped up. After applying the Field Blur, we now see glowing halos extending from some of the balloons in the foreground. The layer creating these halos is the Tilt-Shift Blur layer. We ll double-click on the layer thumbnail in order to open the smart object again in a separate window. Here, we re going to do the same thing that we did previously to remove the halos. We need to use our retouching tools to retouch out the areas creating the halos. We ll activate the Spot Healing Brush and use it to paint over the front end of the pink balloon that s creating one of the halos. In this case, we also need to touch up the results manually by using the Clone Stamp Tool. Again, this doesn t need to be perfect because the area is going to be blurry. We just need to get rid of the yellow area that s creating the halo. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 27

Next, we ll move on to the blue balloon, retouching away the edges that were creating another halo. When we re done, we ll close and save the smart object document and the layer will automatically update back in our original document. We double-clicked on the thumbnail for the Tilt-Shift Blur smart object layer to open the smart object in its own document and that s what you re seeing above. The retouching tools are being used to remove the parts of the balloons that are creating halos in the document. The image is looking pretty good now. We just need to fine-tune the results. I notice that the surface of the trampoline needs to be blurred in the background area, so we ll activate the mask attached to the Full Blur layer and paint with white in that background area that we need to blur. This will reveal the blurry layer in the area where we paint. We ll continue to fine-tune the results, toggling the visibility of all the layers to see if any of them contain areas that need retouching. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 28

Remove person in background I like most everything about this image now, but the person in the background is a bit distracting, and I think the image would look better if we removed the person. We ll toggle the visibility of each layer to see which layer contains the person. It turns out that he is on the bottom layer. We ll double-click on the thumbnail for that layer in order to open the smart object in a separate document. Here, we ll use the Clone Stamp Tool to roughly retouch out the person, trying to leave the black pole intact. When we re done, we ll save and close this smart object document. The original document will update with the changes we just made and the person will no longer be visible. ABOVE LEFT: We want to remove the distracting person from the background. ABOVE RIGHT: We are working on the smart object layer that contains the person and are using the Clone Stamp Tool to roughly remove him. LEFT: You can see the results of the retouching. The person is no longer there. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 29

Add a vignette In order to draw more attention to the boy, it d be nice to add a vignette to the image. The image is made up of several layers, however, so it s not going to be a simple matter of running a filter. We first need to get the entire image on one layer. We don t want to flatten the document, so we ll do this in a special way. We ll hold down the Option key (Alt on Win), click on the Layer menu and choose Merge Visible. This will create a new layer that includes the contents of every other visible layer in the document. It s like having a flattened version of the document on a layer. With this new layer active, we ll click on the Filter menu and choose Convert for Smart Filters. Then, we ll click on the Filter menu again and choose the Camera Raw Filter. In Camera Raw, we ll click on the FX tab on the right side of the interface in order to access the Post-Crop Vignetting settings. We ll drag the Amount slider to the left, darkening the edges of the image. When experimenting with the other sliders, we ll hold down the Option key (Alt on Win) while dragging the sliders. This will give us a view of what the image would look like with the Amount slider turned all the way down. Doing this will give us a better idea of how the sliders are affecting the vignette. We ll adjust the Midpoint and Roundness sliders to fine-tune the shape and size of the vignette. We ll also set the Feather slider to 100 so that the transition is very soft. After adjusting all of the other sliders, we can lastly adjust the Amount slider, dialing in the amount of darkening that we want. Later on, we re going to use a technique that will allow this layer to stay at the top of the layer stack but will still allow us to make visible changes to the underlying layers. Because of this, we re going to change the Vignette Style menu to Paint Overlay. I would not normally recommend using this setting, but for this purpose, it s going to give us the best results. We ll click OK to exit the Camera Raw filter. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 30

A Post-Crop Vignette is being added inside of the Camera Raw filter. The top-most layer is the one that contains the vignette, and it is also obscuring all of the underlying layers. This makes it so that any changes to those underlying layers will not be visible. I want to be able to further edit those layers and their masks while retaining the vignette that we have on the top layer. To do this, we need to take the Camera Raw smart filter that s attached to the top layer and we want to attach it to a different kind of layer. We re going to hold down the Option key (Alt on Win) while clicking the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. By holding down the Option key, it will cause Photoshop to bring up the New Layer dialog, where we can name the new layer and specify a blending mode for the new layer. We ll set the Blending We re creating a new layer that is filled with 50% gray and has a blending mode of Hard Light. Mode menu to Hard Light. This will allow the layer to both lighten and darken the underlying image. When we specify the Hard Light blending mode, a check box will appear below the menu and it will be titled Fill with Hard-Light-neutral color. We ll turn this check box on and then click OK. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 31

This gives us a new layer that is currently not doing anything to the picture. It is filled with 50% gray and its blending mode is set to Hard Light. With this layer active, we ll click on the Filter menu and choose to Convert for Smart Filters. Next, we ll take the Camera Raw smart filter that is currently attached to the underlying layer and we ll drag it up to the top layer. This will remove the vignette from one layer and apply it to another layer. We can now take the underlying layer and drag it to the trash. The vignette is now contained on the top layer but it is not obscuring any of the layers underneath. The Camera Raw filter that is creating the vignette was moved to the 50% gray Hard Light layer so that all of the underlying layers are still visible. Challenge Image: Blur the Background Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 32