[SKETCHi]

[h1]Out of Focus Background[/h1]
Here is an example of what we will be making.


1. Open your picture. I used the picture from the Selective Color tutorial.
 a. Make a new layer and call it Selection. Set it's opacity to 30%-50% depending on your background.
 Screen Shot
 b. Select the brush tool and a bright color.
 c. Paint over the object you want to keep in focus.
 Screen Shot

2. Bluring the background.
 a. CTRL + Click the Selection layer (CMD + Click on Mac).
 b. Select > Inverse
 c. Select the background layer. Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur
 Screen Shot
 d. Deselect and hide the Selection layer.

3. File > Save... It's that easy.

Finished!

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Click the link below to download the PhotoShop file for this tutorial.
Out Of Focus Background PSD

[Grapes]

nice, one thing. When i go to select the layer and i go to select in the menu bar inverse is not availble. and when i select all then it says there are no pixels selected. a little help please?

[SKETCHi]

Weird... did you control + click the Selection layer first? Doing that should put a marquee around the painted area.

[Grapes]

Ok, well i kind of figured it out. i had to use the magnetic lasso in order for me to select the pixels. i dont know why it didnt work before. Anyways, when i did get it to work it looked nothing like yours. but w/e ill play around with it.

thanx anyways

[ZT]

You have to have something selected in the first place to be able to select its inverse, silly.

[Grapes]

Of Course, but when i did have the whole thing selected it didnt let me inverse it i dont know why but it didnt. The Magnetic lasso doesnt work near as well as the other one like in the picture above.

[SKETCHi]

Uh... review step 1. You are supposed to make a new layer and paint on top of the area you want to stay in focus. Then Control + Click the painted layer, which will put a selection around the painted area on that layer. Then Select > Inverse.

[Grapes]

Yes, and i colored the part i want to be focused with yellow. then i did as you said and pressed control then i clicked the layer and inverse still was not selected. Let me see if i can get a screen shot for you.

[SKETCHi]

Do you have AIM? Send me your PSD so I can take a look. Also, are you on a PC or Mac?

[Marx-Man]

there is another way you could use instead of inversing the selection you could

copy paste your selection
 and then delete or hide the previous layer for those having probs with inversing the selection in this case

goto the bacground layer
duplicate it
then goto the selection layer
and ctrl + click it or(right click the lil picture and press select transparency)
goto to the background !copy! and delete selection you created
now control click the newly edited background copy layer and you should get the same effect as inversion.

this is what i had to do when my old version of photoshops inverse packed in

notes/// this method can be used by making a new layer and filling it all with any colour and using it as a template. instead of using a background layer, as transparency can affect this method.   

hope it helps