STEP BY STEP BLUR A DISTRACTING BACKGROUND

Use Photoshop’s updated Neural Filter to throw everything but your subject out of focus

01 ENABLE THE FILTER

Open your image, go to Filter>neural Filters. You’ll find Depth Blur in the Beta section. If it’s your first time using it you’ll need to download it. Once done, turn the filter on and it will analyse the shot, determine what your subject is and blur out the surroundings.

02 CHOOSE A FOCUS POINT

The filter will automatically choose a point of focus for you (with portraits, for example, it will recognize and snap on to the face), but you can choose a different focus point. Uncheck the ‘Focus Subject’ box then click on the preview image to choose a focus point.

03 SET A RANGE

The Focal Range slider lets you expand or contract your depth of field. It’s similar to your aperture setting in that a narrower aperture will give you more depth of field. A low focal range setting works best for us here and keeps the depth-of-field effect very shallow.

04 STRENGTHEN THE BLUR

Use the Blur Strength slider to control how heavy the blur looks. The Haze slider and the four sliders below it let you change the characteristics of the blur. We’ve lowered the temperature here to give the background a cooler feel, and reduced the brightness slightly.

05 INCREASE THE GRAIN

One of the problems with adding blur to backdrops is that it smooths out the grain in shots. This could look out of place. Zoom in close and use the Grain slider to assess the blurred areas, matching the noise to the sharp parts of the scene.

06 CHECK THE EDGES

When you’re happy choose Output>new Layer and hit OK. Zoom in to check the edges of the subject. If you find any areas that look wrong, add a layer mask to the layer then paint black over the blur to hide the effect, revealing the sharper image on the layer below.