Blur the Background with Perspective in Photoshop!

hi there this is animation pics in perfect thank you so very much for tuning in to this video I truly appreciate it so today I'm gonna share with you how to beautifully blur the background keeping the perspective in mind you see it's easy to blur the background wherever you have a horizontal surface like ground right that meets into the horizon you can apply a gradual blur it's easy or let's say you have a vertical wall at the back you apply an even blur all throughout it looks perfect however but if you have something complex let me show that to you so here the eye on Photoshop and we have our subject and right now we don't have any background in it so let's say the background was a ground right something like this how easy would be to blur it very easy we would have to just apply a gradual or something like this let's go to the ground and then filter blur gallery simple tilt shift right and as the distance increased we increased the blur and it made sense the nearer areas will have less blur and as it goes further it would have more blur alright and that's how shallow depth-of-field works so it cancel for now or what if it had a wall it's easy as well all you have to do is to apply some blur throughout so filter blur gallery let's say Fila blur right you apply an equal and even blur throughout and this would work but what if you have something complex like this what do you do now and that is exactly what we're gonna tackle today my friend have a look at the original image so here we have the ground we also have a vertical wall we also have one more surface right there so we have to tackle that all these three how can we do that turns out it's pretty simple and you and I are gonna do this together so without any further ado let's get started [Music] back to the mystical magical mysterious and brilliant folder Photoshop and if you know go ahead and download this for and follow along you already know what to do check the links in the description the first thing we need to do whenever it comes to blurring the background is always extracting the subject so the best way to accurately select the subject is the pen tool not the select subject feature and the later versions of Photoshop the pen tool was and always will be the most accurate way to kind of select out objects maybe in the future a I think's will happen but right now is the pen tool so select the pen tool right in there the shortcut is always P so let's select the pen tool and then just zoom in and let's from right here click to create a point and then click and drag to create a curve click and drag to create a curve alright that's how we will continue and whenever you want to create a corner instead of a smooth curve you would hold the Alt key or the option key click on it to break the front handle and there you have created a corner right you want to create a corner now just for the sake of showing it to you you would hold the Alt key or the option key click on it and now it becomes a corner if you want to know more about the pen tool and how to use it that a to that guide is right here now I have already drawn the path around the subject so I'm just gonna load it up so I'm gonna go to Potts I had already saved it now keep in mind whenever you creating a path just rename it and save it so let's say I was with the pen tool and I was creating a pod something like this as you're working in the path just go to the pods tab right now you're working on the part that is selected you just rename it to whatever you want so I've already created a path for the subject so let's go ahead and delete this so I'm gonna quickly load that up for you so I'm gonna go to pods click on that that loads it up for me right now we are not gonna make a selection out of it wait for it first of all we will make the copy so for the background layer selected press ctrl or command J we have a copy and now we can name this subject for organization now we will make a selection out of this path how can we do that there are two ways you can right click on it and choose make selection you don't want any feather you can keep it zero and hit OK the other way is if you have saved the path you can go to the paths tab hold the ctrl or command click on the thumbnail of the path it will also make a selection once you have done that just click on the mask button now it's masked out but you cannot see it separately if you turn off the background of course you can see it but if you want a solid background to kind of see it properly so let's select the background and then click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose solid color and we're gonna choose black this is just to see it hit OK we can always turn that off later or delete that later now if we zoom in have a look at this one of the biggest things to keep in mind while you're working with the pen tool is that it just creates hard edges when it comes to hair you have to be careful you have to do that again you have to just go in there make a selection inwards with the pen tool and then bring the hair back with the help of the brushes so in this case if you have a look at this photo it's kind of just impossible to use let me just turn off these it's kind of just impossible to use something like the refine edge tool or the select subject going in there and using all those smart radius and all of that that's not gonna work because the hair is kind of mixing so much with that of the background it will not properly select the hair so our best bet is recreating it so let me turn everything back on alright so all you have to do is to select the brush and then select one of these hair brushes so I'm going to go to my hair brush and select one of these and start painting right here now I can download all of my personal hair brushes by using the link in the description or free that's for you alright zoom in make sure the mask is selected foreground color white let's make the brush a little smaller all right I'm gonna make it a little more smaller and just start painting the here see how natural this is now I would highly recommend using a Wacom for this because if you do this with the mouse it's gonna take you a lot of time there you go how easy and natural this one looks also there are other hair brushes that you can use a bigger one a smaller one a lighter one a 10 or one everything you need and also a single hair brush which is amazing as well so if you just zoom in he just just drawing squiggly lines of course you need to make the brush a little smaller let's go for three pixels boom and just little randomness here and there alright now this area is done as you can see it looks amazing now I've already done this for you for all of the other areas so you don't have to go throughout the boring process so let's get to it so there you have it my friend as you can see I have not worked very hard in it it's pretty shabby here and there it just took me five minutes to kind of do it I didn't pay much attention you know why you can actually spend hours with the hair but I just spent five minutes because it's gonna be blurred later because we're creating a shallow depth-of-field and there's not gonna be so much definition in the hair anyway so don't need to work so hard work smart alright what else you can do is you can also create some extra layers at the top and then paint some extra hair with the help of the brush tool alright so you can take the brush too and then you can choose the single hair brush or you can also choose multiple hair brush if you want to and then just if you want to draw some extra hair you can do that as well so you can sample this by holding the Alt key or the option key click to take a sample and draw some extra hair some hair flying in around here and there right see it's looking interesting isn't it so I'm gonna sample this color and draw hair here and there you can have fun with this as much as you want I didn't take much time and drew a couple hair here and there have a look so here is the subject group that I made if you're getting confused let me just ungroup it for you so ungroup so this was the subject layer that we were dealing with let me just name this subject again and now on top of that I just painted a couple hair have a look just this just a couple extra here and there so that's it pretty simple once you have painted the hair just group everything into one sit like the subject layer hold the shift key select the topmost hair layer and then ctrl or command G now we can just name this group subject boom so the subject is done it's not an awesome selection with awesome the most awesome here but it's gonna be blurred anyways so who cares now it's time for us to move to step number two step number two is remove the subject from the background it's very essential if you don't remove the subject from the background and you begin to blur it it will create a ghosting effect you don't want to have it let me show you what I mean by that it's essential to understand things as well so let's say we have this background alright so let me just copy the background by pressing ctrl or command J we always want to have a backup and momentarily let's turn off this solid color right in there and then if I start blurring it just a simple blur filter blur let's say we were to apply Gaussian blur and we start blurring the background have a look around the subject it is creating this ghosting effect look at that so it's also blurring the subject around the subject which can confuse things so if I blur just a little have a look at the halo that is created around the subject this is the subject being blurred have a look at the halo of the hair right you don't want any of that and that's why it's essential to remove the subject so again I'm gonna show that to you again turn this off turn the solid color off make a copy of the background and you can actually name this there now remove the subject from the blur background let's turn off the subject momentarily the subject that we had extracted now select the blur layer and then just zoom in and then with the help of the lasso tool or the polygonal lasso tool whatever is your favorite make a selection of the subject leaving a little gap make sure you select none of the subject not even a single hair you can make this process easier by lowering the current selection and expanding it so right now we already have a selection if we just open up the subject group right in there if we hold the ctrl or command and click on the mask we already have a selection and now we would go to select modify and then expand and we can expand it by let's try 15 pixels see it's already creating such a nice thing and now we can move on to the lasso tool and kind of improve it wherever it's needed hold the shift key to turn it into a plus lasso tool and then you can start adding to it if you want so whenever you see something needs to be added have a look this area needs to be added not even a single hair should be left out make sure you add everything once we have made the selection all we have to do is to fill it with content-aware so let's go to edit and inside of edit we would choose content aware fill if you're using older versions of Photoshop just choose fill and make sure content aware is selected inside of the contents drop down and hit OK but in the newer versions just choose content aware fill the dedicated one you can actually leave it at default it did a pretty good job and then hit OK if you want you can play with all of these settings but I'm gonna let it go hit OK it did a pretty good job press ctrl or command D to deselect it and now you can turn on the subject now at this point you can blurt the background easily you're free to do that now since we were using the brand new content aware fill it had the option of filling out the filled areas on a brand new layer so have a look at this if I turn off the subject you would notice that it filled the blur on a brand new layer you didn't want that just merge both of these layers so select the blur layer and the blur copy by holding the ctrl or command select both of them and then press ctrl or command e to merge them let's name this leur layer or blur background now before we apply blur to it we need to convert this into a smart object so let's go to filter and then convert for Smart Filters and hit OK now you my friend and I are absolutely ready and geared up for step number three that is blur the background and we will do this by keeping the perspective in mind let's go to filter this is just a regular blur but we will apply it in a certain way that perspective is not ignored filter blur gallery and then tilt shift now it's important that you turn on the subject so that you can see what's happening in there so just make sure that the blur background layer is selected let's go to filter blur gallery till shipped before we keep on increasing blur let's understand how tilt-shift works so let's say we increase the blur 200 pixels right just keep in mind anything between these two boundaries have a look these two solid boundaries will be at blur 0 right 0 blur from one of these solid boundary to the dotted boundary the blur will gradually increase from 0 here 200 or whatever number you type in there from zero it goes on to 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 hundred you get the point and beyond this dotted line everything is at 100 blur value so we need to keep these solid borders around the focal plane or where the camera is focusing in this case it's gonna be the subject so where is the subject standing subject might be standing right in here let's guess the height to be right in there so I'm gonna keep it right in there okay so here is where the solid line starts and the dotted line ends in probably right there so the blur goes from zero to whatever number we pick later let's not determine that now so that's for the ground but what about the wall right in there what do we do about it so far now let's decrease the blur to zero so that we can see everything clearly so with the wall where do you think is the focal plane so the subject is standing right there the camera is focusing on the subject so it should be right about right in there in the wall so we will create another point know that you can create multiple points with tilt-shift and that my friend is the secret so let's go ahead and click to create one more point but this time let's rotate the point so as soon as you see the rotation sign hold the shift key and then rotate it it will rotate it in 15 degrees one at a time and then start one of these solid lines right there right about there I guess it would be and slowly and gradually it goes in the dotted line goes until there all right so now we have two perspectives in mind but what about this surface you have to keep that in mind as well so we can create one more point and this time we will make it perpendicular to that of the surface just like this and there's the focal plane let's guess it to be right in there and then we will gradually increase it so we have kept all of these three surfaces in mind now all we have to do is to just increase the blur if you're gonna keep it at about 175 that seems like a perfect plan now please keep in mind you can always change the blur values you might ask how well this my friend is a smart object you can always double click on it go to the blur gallery and change the values later so don't worry about the values if you - excessive or too low with it we can always change that so far now we're gonna keep it at 175 now as we add Blair we also want one more magical thing and that thing we call it bokeh I don't know how to pronounce it properly but you get the point go to the effects once the effects are open inside of that increase the light bokeh all the way to hundred percent first we will control that later that's the trick bokeh color we don't need any of that 100% light bokeh is fine now these two sliders are the actual magic right in here so what is the range of the bokeh you want where do you want the bokeh to be so I want all of these to be in the bokeh area so I think this would be a perfect range now the bokeh at the moment are very brightly and highly overly exposed to reduce that you would bring the other white slider close to this and then you would bring both of these sliders really really close and once you bring them absolutely close they would be amazingly fine now you can move it play with it see what fits you the best see what you like the best I like this the best and once you have what you like you can of course decrease the intensity to let go off the overexposed areas all right maybe I'll adjust this a little bit this looks perfect to me now if you want you can slightly increase the bokeh color but for me it's not of my taste so I'm gonna leave it at that you can go back to the blur tools and also turn on symmetric distortion if you want to and once you turn it on and you move it have a look at the distortion it's creating so if you're a fan of that you can create it maybe I'll create a slight distortion just a slight little bit and leave it at that now once you blur the background there's one more problem that arises have a look at this if we just simply zoom in you could notice that there's a little bit of noise on the subject but right now there is no noise on the background because we have blurred it already so we need to bring the noise back to make it look realistic let's zoom out so to bring the noise back we would go back to the effects again and then go to the noise and then just choose green or Gaussian whatever you like I'm gonna choose green increase the amount not too much noise just a moderate amount is fine you can play with the size of the noise if you want to he can just increase it or decrease it I'm gonna keep it at about this value you can increase the roughness if you wish to I'm just gonna go with just a little value right there just a tiny bit of noise not too much you need to match that with that if the subject have a look at the noise in the subject right now what kind of noise is it it's not too much so let's just decrease the amount of noise right in there and there you go just a touch Huff noise my friend now if you want you can add an overall blur on top of this just to smooth things up a little bit so let's go back to the blur tools and then you can also check in field blur just to add an overall blur on top of this let's click on field blur and we're not gonna add too much of blur let's maybe add 10 then looks to be a fine number hit OK once you are satisfied you can always go back to this and edit this to your heart's content let's move on to step number 4 which is apply a soft blur to the subject as well because have a look the shallow depth of field that we have created it's actually pretty shallow it's very shallow how can all of the subject be so sharp it is just not possible right maybe the eyes are sharp maybe the ears are not very sharp it's a little out of focus maybe some of the hairs are out or out of focus you get the point what I'm trying to say so to blur the subject first of all let's convert all of the group along with the hair and everything to a smart object so right-click on it and then let's choose convert to smart object that we don't have to deal with blurring the masks again moving it here and there more blurring the hair and all of that just convert it into a smart object now let's go to filter blur gallery and this time we would go with field lab now field also has one thing that I absolutely love that is adding multiple points so we can actually zoom in and move this point to the eye because we want the eyes to be in focus and everything in the focal plane of the eye will definitely be in focus so here are the eyes blur it's gonna be zero in the eyes right similarly blur is gonna be zero right in here as well similarly let's create a point right there there is gonna be zero right in there but maybe here you're gonna add a little bit of blur how much 4 pixels is fine alright here as well maybe just about four pixels is fine you don't have to be absolutely accurate everywhere four pixels is fine right maybe here zero because it's in the same focal plane maybe here because the hair is a little back you'll just create a point four pixels is fine you get where I'm going with this so look at the hand arm right there so at this point we can create a less amount of blur maybe two right in here we can create a higher amount maybe five at this area we can just create one more point and the arm definitely is gonna be a little more blurred because it's a little pout so we can just keep it at six here as well it's six same thing at the bottom we can add a little more blur so we can add about eight in here just make sure it is six right there I had the back maybe let's keep it at nine right here as well you can keep it a larger amount at about seven see just adding a soft blur adds so much to the subject so let's add six in here how about five five is good so just adding a soft layer that the subject as well overall makes a lot of difference maybe we will add a little more blur hit OK you can always change all of these points later you don't have to worry too much about it now as you can see it's blending much better I think in my opinion the hand is kind of too focused so we can always go back to that and maybe create one more point right in there and blur it out a bit maybe let's go for twelve here let's go for ten here you can move the points to control the blur as well so hit OK see how it looks yeah it looks fantastic now let's move on to the final step number five and this step is actually optional it is all about brightening up the subject taking the attention more towards the subject and maybe adding some overlays and all of that that is this is optional you don't have to do it this is just enhancing the image even more this is not related blurring the background because but that is something I would do with this image so let's create a curves adjustment layer at the top and then with the help of the hand right there have a look at the hand and you can choose the sample size three by three average just click on the highlight point of the subject this is the highlight point click and drag it up right right there and now let's choose a shadow point or maybe a mid point and then bring it back something like this this is interesting and we only want to apply it to the subject not the entire background so here's what we do we click on this button right there create clipping mask button that way it only applies to that of the subject now we don't also want to apply to the bottom area of the subject we want to apply it gradually so select the mask select the gradient black to white is fine and then let's drag it from bottom to top something like this okay so this is gradual if you want one more curves you can add it as much curve as you want so click on this button to limit adjust to the subject and then maybe just take this slider a little bit to the left create something like this all right now you can select the mask press ctrl or command I take the brush and just with the help of a soft round brush let's go to the general brushes soft round brush slow and opacity at 100 just you know my favorite word dab with white right let's make it bigger and just dabbing right there there you have it you have the brightness you see that it looks and it looks like it's looking amazing now let's go ahead and increase it to about 60 you pasady of 60 is fine now one more additional step if you want it you can also add some overlays if you wish to now one of my favorite ways which I personally use to add overlays by is by using a plugin that I really like it gives me commercially usable textures that I can use in my work without having to worry about licensing it and all of that it's actually the infinite texture panels ai visualizer so I'm gonna go to window extensions and I visualize and what it does is that it allows you to browse textures using AI so if you like a particular texture it will show you textures similar to that visually similar to that so I can go to all of these categories right there probably light and inside of light my friend created this the crystal collection right so I can load it up and then let's say I like this one right if I choose this one everything similar to that will show up if I like this bokeh everything similar to that is gonna show up now if I like that one everything similar to that is going to show up I can increase the randomness right there so that more the randomness the more random textures similar to that it's gonna show up around I actually like the original texture right there if you want a different set you can also reshuffle it so another set of textures similar to this are gonna show up so I actually saved one of my favorites at the top I think it was this one so let's go ahead and load this up so I'm just gonna click on add it's gonna load it up for me at the top it will also add a blend mode to it so this is actually a symbol overlay as you can see it loaded it up for me and shows the blend mode screen you can also get some overlays from the internet but I absolutely love this plug-in because every texture here is just made for compositing in mind so let's just go ahead and rotate it a little bit probably like this and let's stretch it all right that looks fantastic now I don't want this part of the texture kind of so let's go ahead and click on the mask button right there take the brush black as the foreground color and just paint it away no big issue all right let's decrease the opacity you don't want it to get gather so much attention let's keep it at about probably 65 and make one more copy of that control or command shape I want more of it at the bottom so select the mask of this one and just remove the top just keep the bottom all right and you can control the opacity of this one as well probably a little less let's keep it at about 36 there you have it just a little bit of overlay let's have a look at that before and after here's the before and here is the after such a huge massive amazing difference so here's the final result my friend I hope you like it so that's how you play the background beautifully using the perspective in mind all you have to keep in mind is this lets go through a quick little recap first of all select the subject extract the subject use whatever method you want a lot of the videos are linked up in the description you can check all of them out to select hair cell subject mask it out all of that it's all easy use these the same concepts just extract the subject the second step is remove the subject from the background that you're going to blur so with a copy of the background that you're supposed to blur remove the subject from that if you don't it will create a halo effect step number three is blurring it now to keep the perspective consistent only have to do is to add different multiple points for tilt-shift one for the ground one for the wall one for another surface you get the point step number four do not forget also to blur the subject just a little bit on certain areas which are away from the focal plane you can use field blur to do this by using multiple points because this is such a shallow depth of field you don't want the subject to look like a piece of cardboard which is just so flat step number five is optional you can do anything you want to just enhance the image in this case I just added a few highlights and overlays that's pretty much it I hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other feature tips tricks or tutorials I would love to take this moment thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep pixel perfect free for everybody forever thanks so much for all your support thank you for watching I will see you guys again on my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 342,566

Keywords: photoshop blur background, photoshop depth of field, photoshop bokeh, out of focus photoshop, focus blur, photo manipulation, fantasy soft light effect photoshop, how to blur photo background in photoshop like very expensive lens photography, add bokeh in photoshop, make bokeh background in photoshop, how to edit photos like a professional in photoshop, photoshop blur effect, lens blur photoshop, adobe, photoshop tutorial, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: SBImTbgx2o0

Length: 27min 11sec (1631 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020