The great thing about Photoshop is that you can do so many different things within the program. The best part about it is that it’s user friendly and a great way for beginners to learn photo-editing skills. There are literally tons of ways you can edit your photos in Photoshop though, and each has a different tutorial. In this tutorial, I am going to guide you through the steps it takes in order to blur a background.
There may be a variety of different reasons why you’d want to blur a background. Perhaps you just don’t like what’s behind the subject, or you want there to be more focus on the subject. Personally, I like blurring the background of a picture because it makes the subject pop more. But you can blur the background in Photoshop for pretty much any reason.
So let’s begin!
Step 1) Open your photo in Photoshop by going to File > Open. Make sure you choose a photo in which you want to blur the background.
Step 2) Once you have your photo opened, duplicate the image via the layer option box. CTRL + J
Step 3) Highlight the layer or the background copy and select the Filter known as Extract by clicking ALT + CTRL + X. This will bring up the extract window.
Step 4) Zoom in. When a picture is larger, it’s easier to work with. Do this via the extract screen by clicking the magnify tool.
Step 5) Select the pen tool. It’s located on the very top left of the box and then check the Smart Highlighting box on the right side. (I usually don’t alter the extraction smoothness, but you can play around with it after finishing this tutorial if you like!)
Step 6) Now it’s time to drag the pen tool around the part of the image you want to blur. After you do this, fill the background area in using the pain bucket tool located on the vertical free-floating menu bar. Then click OK to confirm what you want to do.
Step 7) Now the extraction window will be closed and the background layer will have the paint bucket color to it. Now it’s time to blur since you’ve selected the background. To blur the area, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and adjust to the blurriness that you want. You can select any number to alter how blurry the background will be.
That’s all there is to it. Now you have a blurred background and the real focus is now on your image.
One more tip: There is one other way to blur the background though, just in case this tutorial is a little too advanced. Sometimes I like to do selective blurring and just use the blur tool located on the vertical menu bar. In order to use this, select the blur tool, select your brush settings and begin to drag the tool over the background. This is a much easier alternative for beginners but it’s not as precise and it will give you different results. It also takes a little more time, but it’s also a great way to practice.
