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| Depth Of Field Adjustment |
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With careful planning and good lighting conditions, the subject of a photo can
stand out beautifully, and draw the viewer's attention to it immediately.
But what happens when the subject of a photo is less distinct, or the background
is simply too intrusive/colorful? This tutorial describes a very
simple method for depth of field adjustment using default Photoshop tools and a
little touch of creative vision.
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Step 1:
Open up a stock image in Photoshop of any size and/or format. The best
results for this tutorial usually involve large images with a definite
subject in focus in the image. This isn't absolutely essential, of
course, but since we are blurring the superfluous details, the end result
will look unusual if the entire image lacks sharp focus in any area. |
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Step
2: Select the Magnetic Lasso Tool and draw a selection around the focal
object in your image. The Magnetic Lasso Tool works by detecting edges
and placing down control points (the little squares) automatically.
You can place a control point manually by clicking once on the image, and
remove the last point by hitting the backspace key (very useful if you sneeze
whilst you are mousing around the object).
Note: If
you desire even finer control, you can use the Polygon Lasso Tool, or just
the plain old Lasso Tool, although these require a bit more skill! |
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Step
3: When you have finished drawing the line around your object, click on
the first control point to close your selection. You should now see
the so-called 'marching ants' around your object. For the next
step, however, we want to blur the background and not the object, so choose
Select > Inverse from the main Photoshop menu to reverse the
selection. |
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Step
4: Now that we have the background selected, we can blur it by selecting
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur from the main menu. Just
move the 'Radius' slider around until the background blur suits your
own
individual tastes, and then click OK. Now just lose your selection via Select >
Deselect, and admire your results!
Note: Feel
free to use the Blur Tool to soften out the edges of your focal object if
they are a little too sharp. |
- Tutorial written by Man1c M0g
|  |  |  |  |  | Last 5 User Comments |  |  | 
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Thank you so much for this it will come in so handy for for my manipulations
Dave |
Reply to this post |
User: saxc (#38485)
Date: Thu Mar 01, 2007. 05:28:24 | Post #2 of 3 |
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This is great way to emphasize the "idea" or the "message" one is trying to convey (if one is) with a photo; put the object of the utmost interest in focus. That's what PS is all about, helping people to bring out ideas in visual medium easily, and have fun, off course. So, this tut hits the core. Thanks soooo much for this really useful advice. |
Reply to this post |
User: alex_at (#25244)
Date: Sat Mar 18, 2006. 16:38:18 | Post #1 of 3 |
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would this not only work for flat images though as with perspective depth of field would change? |
Reply to this post |
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