Please help me with lens blur

michael972

Good day. I hope you can assist. I am struggling with the subject isolation motion blur many of you seem to have prerfected so well. In the shot below you will see my problem (i hope the subject matter does not offend. If so, my appologies). My technique is this: open file, duplicate layer, create mask on dupluicate layer, paint over area i want protected, apply mask, go to lens blur play with settings and apply. However, all my results come out sloppy. Like this

wxwax

micheal, sorry I didn't see this thread before.

One way to get more accurate layering is to zoom in very, very close to your boundary, and work your way around. Get almost to the pixel level.

Use a large-ish brush, and have it set to a soft edge.

To move your way around the image, push down on the Space bar - this turns your cursor into a hand, and lets you move the image around. Then release the Space bar and go back to using your Brush tool.

It's painstaking work, and needs a fine touch to do well. Having a tablet and stylus, like a Wacom, helps a lot with the fine details.

cletus

I haven't used Lens Blur much, but I think Sid is right. I think that the masking has to be nearly perfect for the filter to work.

wxwax

Michael, one other thing I've read, but haven't tried much. Some folks will vary the opacity of the blur.

A camera doesn't hit maximum blur 1 pixel away from the model. There's a gradual increase in blur. So folks will mimic the same effect in photochop. They'll use a big brush, and do bands of steadily increasing blur opacity as they move away from the subject. Looks more natural, is the idea.

michael972

wxwax wrote:

Michael, one other thing I've read, but haven't tried much. Some folks will vary the opacity of the blur.

A camera doesn't hit maximum blur 1 pixel away from the model. There's a gradual increase in blur. So folks will mimic the same effect in photochop. They'll use a big brush, and do bands of steadily increasing blur opacity as they move away from the subject. Looks more natural, is the idea.

Thanks kindly. I'll give those methods a try