Strong Focus for Killer Portraits

Strong - Strengthen portraits with an intense background blur

Learn how to use Photoshop to fix portrait photos with a distracting background. This effect is easy enough for the beginner but works exceptionally well. Many professional stock photographers use this technique to enhance their portrait photos and increase their sales. Find out how you can make your portrait photos look better with this fast Photoshop tutorial.

Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)

Most websites charge several dollars to download a sample Photoshop file. We offer it free to everyone. This is possible because we are an ad supported website - we show a few ads so you don’t have to pay.

One of the most important element of good portrait photography is the background. The background is also the most common mistake with portrait photography. Good lighting, pose, and focus can contribute to good portrait photography, but a distracting background can ruin it all. Chances are that if you shoot portraits, you’ll have several photos with this problem laying around. Follow this Photoshop tutorial to learn how to rescue those photos and make them look amazing.

The distracting background

What a beautiful model, uniform, and pose. But there’s something wrong with it. Looking at the image below, you were probably trying to figure out what the background is. The photo looks like it was taken at some parking lot outside an apartment. How does that have anything to do with the uniform? Actually, this photo was taken at an old barrack.

Step 1

Begin by duplicating the layer. This will create two layers - one for the blurry background and one for the subject. To duplicate a layer, choose Layer > Duplicate. Make sure that you have the new layer, Layer 1, selected.

Step 2

Now we’ll use the Extract filter. This filter makes it easy to cutout something from a photo - in our case, it will be to cutout the model. Choose Filter > Extract to open the Extract tool. To extract, draw a line on the edge of the model. But before we do that, checkmark the Smart Highlighting option. This will snap the brush to the
edge making the process faster and easier.

Outline the model with the brush. You will need to be very precise; if not, the results will be jagged edges.

Zoom in about 500% to make sure that you can see the tiny pixels.
Use the smallest brush size to make the extraction process more accurate.
When you reach the end of the window, hold down the spacebar and your cursor should change to a hand. Click and drag on the picture to move it to another section to continue brushing.

More pages: 1 2 3

Written by admin on February 9th, 2008 with 23 comments.
Read more articles on Photo Retouching and Photoshop Tutorials.

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23 comments

Read the comments left by other users below, or:

Megan
#1. February 9th, 2008, at 10:57 PM.

Thanks for sample PSD… never seen this done before. I know a high-res PSD is big, but can you post that up?

Lancer4Ever
#2. February 10th, 2008, at 1:39 AM.

You should go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise on the bottom layer. Otherwise, the noise on the background blur and portrait will not match.

GraphX
#3. February 10th, 2008, at 2:14 AM.

tuto too long… not a trend

gadsf
#4. February 10th, 2008, at 11:27 AM.

you blurred it too much… little less would look better

avangelist
#5. February 11th, 2008, at 1:26 AM.

I totally agree, the background is so blurred that you have made the shot look wrong. There is no depth perception and in doing have removed the light source making the woman look blatently cut out and pasted.

asdf
#6. February 11th, 2008, at 2:46 AM.

No offense, but that psd is a joke since it’s so small. It’s not full res and it’s actually smaller than some of the images in the tutorial html. If you want to give a psd for people to learn from you need to make everything as undo-able as possible IMO. In this case using a layer mask to hide instead of just deleteing the background would be preferable… you can use the extract filter and then use it as a layer mask on another layer. The original background layer should always be left untouched too if you’re going to be using the psd file to teach others.

Zero
#7. February 11th, 2008, at 5:49 AM.

Damn man, I don’t like the picture now. It was fine to begin with… sheesh.

paulo
#8. February 11th, 2008, at 6:39 AM.

thanks you good tutorial

Thomas
#9. February 11th, 2008, at 10:13 AM.

You blurred that background way too mutch. Im stilling wondering what that background is just for information.

50% less blur would been good, just a guess.

stella
#10. February 11th, 2008, at 7:54 PM.

Can you post up the PSD of the first picture instead? The picture that says STRONG in the background.

admin
#11. February 11th, 2008, at 8:47 PM.

Thanks for the tips asdf. You are correct that using a layer mask is the proper way to do it.

I tried to make this tutorial simple because I read a lot of comments on other sites about people complaining how long and complicated the tutorials are. That is why I chose not to use the non-destructive way to write this tutorial. I’ll make my next tutorials non-destructive.

Regarding the PSD, I cannot make it any bigger because it is a stock photo.

admin
#12. February 11th, 2008, at 8:48 PM.

Hi Megan,

Sorry, I cannot post a high-res PSD because it is a stock photo that I do not have permission to distribute in a larger medium.

admin
#13. February 11th, 2008, at 8:51 PM.

Hi avangelist,

I also prefer the image if it was less-blurred. I thought people like more abstract results because that is what I see on many photography forums. People are always asking how to create effects that do not look natural. I will try to keep the future Photoshop tutorials more natural looking.

admin
#14. February 11th, 2008, at 8:56 PM.

Hi Lancer4Ever,

That’s a great idea! I actually never heard of this from anyone before.

Neil
#15. February 14th, 2008, at 6:21 AM.

Dude,

Nice TUT. I think its great that you are willing to share for the purpose of educating. I will use this .psd and learn from it. Keep up the good work.

Sarah
#16. February 15th, 2008, at 1:53 AM.

I think its a great tutorial specially for new designers. Keep it up!

Cablekevin
#17. February 18th, 2008, at 8:15 AM.

I find all the coments quite sucky, when there is a good tutorial nobody gives the man a props, but when the tutorial sucks or is bad, you hear people scream like the world is going to it’s last days. I allready saw that 1 person said that it was to blurry, i don’t think its really helpfull if 20 ppl will say it. Bad of the blur, after all a good tutorial i guess!

Melinda
#18. March 3rd, 2008, at 5:19 PM.

Very nice tutorial. Thanks a bunch!

pmcdonald
#19. March 15th, 2008, at 9:05 PM.

Nice Work. It is a good tutorial.

Chris
#20. March 24th, 2008, at 11:29 AM.

Hi, would it be possible for a tutorial to be posted on how to get a background on the photo using the image that has been extracted?

Im not entirely sure if it is possible but i would love to learn how if it is possible! Im a beginer if you cannot tell!

thanks,
Chris

faygh
#21. March 28th, 2008, at 2:55 PM.

please send to mail sample photoshop

stasha
#22. May 5th, 2008, at 4:03 PM.

Super, this was the easiest and best way.

k
#23. May 15th, 2008, at 8:34 AM.

yey

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Strong Focus for Killer Portraits

Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)

The distracting background

Step 1

Step 2

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