| | | 1. Load the photo
If you want to emphasize a theme in a picture, so that it literally stands out, the following procedure will prove handy. It is particularly suitable for highlighting moving objects as the zoom-like motion blur of pixels give an illusion of movement to the still image. What we have here is a cat photo in a mildly interesting setting. Of course we'll leave the cat's head in the center of the image. Let's zoom in onto it. |
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| 2. The relevant area
Select the ellipse selection tool from the tools palette (or press M), and drag an elliptical marquee around the area you want to select. Right-click the area to display a context menu and select Feather. Feather will blur selection edges. Make sure the blurring looks soft. For such a small image, 30 to 40 pixels are OK, but for larger pictures, the edges can be blurred in a depth of several hundred pixels. |
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| 3. Inverse
Since what we want to change is not the cat's head but the area around it, right-click again and click Select Inverse in the menu. This inverts the selection. |
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| 4. Radial
Here comes the main thing: the zoom-like blur. From the Filter/Blur menu, select Radial Blur, and specify the above settings. Set Amount (blur intensity) to a high value. Also make sure Zoom is selected. The Quality setting does not make a big difference here, but you may still want to stick to the Best option. |
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| 5. Attracting the eye
If the main theme did not attract enough glances before, it will now. All pixels are pointed towards it. |
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Related Photoshop Tutorials Background blur I. in Photoshop
Background blur II. in Photoshop
Mock-up effect in Photoshop More Photoshop Tutorials | |
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