Generate Blur to Make Your Photo Stands Out
This tutorial actually is basic for portrait photography – I am sorry if you feel this tutorial is too basic. First I want to say that it is important to make your photo stands out. In this tutorial I just want to give some idea to make your photo stands out by generating blur. In this tutorial, I also add some improvements such as local contrast, sharpening and tone adjustment – like in my previous tutorial.
Original photo is come from benson74 you can see his flickr here. Original Photo you can see below (small size), for large size please click here. If you interesting with this girl (Nikki) you can click her wretch.
My simple steps:
1. Open original photo
2. Duplicate original layer and remove any watermark in above layer because it will influence the result when we apply blur filter. Since this photo is copyright by benson74 so I don’t want to remove the watermark in final result – so in original layer I try to make a layer to keep the watermark.
Removing watermark:
Copy watermark to another layer (turn off this layer because we don’t need it this time):
3. Duplicate above layer (copy of original layer – without watermark) and name the layer lens blur. Now go to Filter->Blur->Lens Blur. In Lens blur dialog box you can change many things but the important things are shape, radius, and blade curvature. Try to change the number and see the result. After that we must make mask to protect some parts, be careful when using mask – my suggestion: try to combine mask with gaussian blur to smooth the boundary.
Applying Lens Blur:
Masking:
4. Final Adjustment: try to improve edited photo with adding local contrast, sharpening, and adjusting the skin tone. About how to do this – please check it in my previous tutorial about retouching (jump to step 8-9-10).
Final adjustment:
5. Turn on watermark layer. I don’t want my final result without original watermark, I think we should respect original photographer who takes this photo.
Comparison between original photo and edited photo can be seen below (zoom for better view), sorry for added the text -> just to mention that it looks similar with comparison of f/4 and f/2.8 or f/2 (maybe).
Finally we finish this tutorial. As usual comments, suggestions, critiques and questions are welcome.
A very well written article here and glad to discover your blog
roentarre
December 7, 2008 at 8:20 am
thanks roentarre…. also thanks for visiting my blog
welcome to see my other tutorials or articles…
edwinsetiawan
December 7, 2008 at 11:29 am
Edwin…i think she becomes more beautiful after you retouch the pictures.
Salut dah
dawei
December 7, 2008 at 1:37 pm
thanks dawei….
salut sama fotografernya juga tuh….. gue cuman ngedit doang, abis gak punya lensa zoom buat moto di pameran haha….
edwinsetiawan
December 7, 2008 at 1:43 pm
cool!
kostik
December 8, 2008 at 2:56 pm
manteb!!!
udah jago photography,
jago ngedit pula..
sip2..
ajarin ngedit juga donk ko edwin,,
kadang hasil foto kurang fokus , agak blur gitu..
niken
February 21, 2009 at 7:52 am
haha gampang …. kan bsok ketemu di gereja
edwinsetiawan
February 21, 2009 at 2:54 pm
umm.. keren banget tutorials nya oom..
mo nanya ne, tadi yg ati2 klo masking n klo bisa pake gausian blur waktu masking lensblur nya… nah itu mksdnya kita bikin satu [duplicate] layer lagi ato apply lensblur skalian di timpa apply gausian trus baru di masking?
ato gmn?
mohon pencerahannya oom, agak gaptek english ne..
yayan
May 9, 2009 at 1:55 pm
hehe…. kayaknya banyak yang salah paham, atau saya yang salah nulisnya hehe….. see this sentence:
“After that we must make mask to protect some parts, be careful when using mask – my suggestion: try to combine mask with gaussian blur to smooth the boundary.”
biasanya klo kita mau masking bagian tertentu dalam photo – kita pake brush… nah biasanya klo pake brush mungkin batasnya gak halus. Klo batasnya gak halus nanti akan terlihat blur dalam foto ini editan…. Nah untuk memperhalus batas maskingnya – kita perlu tambahkan gaussian filter untuk masknya bukan layer yang sudah diberi effect lens blur. Semoga dimengerti hehe…
edwinsetiawan
May 9, 2009 at 2:04 pm
oo.. sipp sipp… dah dicoba dan ternyata iya lebih halus antara batas masking yg selected ma yg ga selected, lebih natural.. thx 4 sharing ^^
yayan
May 12, 2009 at 8:08 am