Heres a picture of me attempting to talk while chewing on a burger. Not one of greatest moments but it will do. I thought since I’m doing a blog about my Graphic Design interests it would be a good idea to make a small tutorial. For this tutorial I will be removing the focus from the background and putting all focus on myself (conceded eh :D). In other words I’ll be using different technics to create Depth of Field, which is the total focused area in front of and behind an object.
Step 1
I found a picture one of my friends took while i was visiting my friends at Waterloo University over the summer. I’ll be showing you guys how to create depth of field. First I duplicated the background layer, I try not to work on the actual background image I usually just make a copy of it or a new Layer.
Step 2
Once you have a copy, press Q to go into a Quick Mask. Using the Paint Brush Tool select an appropriate size and paint around the part of the image you want to keep. In this case I painted around myself, as I want to get everything around me selected for later.Its alright if you arent able to get everything all in one run through. Whats cool about the Quick Mask mode as long as it’s on you can also erase parts if you accidently go over something. Try using a both an Air Brush eraser and a solid eraser to go over any areas you may have painted my mistake.
For smaller areas you may also use the Magic Wand Tool (W). Playing around with the Tolerance (which is at the top right under “Select”) you can change the amount it selects. The higher it is the more you select the less it is the less you select.
Step 3
Now to exit Quick Mask Mode press “Q” and at the top you should see the lines around what you have selected. The title bar at the top will let you know when you are in or out of Quick Mask mode. When finished then select “Select Inverse” which would select everything outside of what I already painted while in Quick Mask Mode (think of it as flipping it, what ever is outside is now inside and so on.
Step 4
Once I have my entire body selected with “Select Inverse” I now have my background selected, from there went to Image-> Adjustments-> Black & White. Once the black and white settings box pops up just hit ok. Now the background is black and white while I’m still in color.
Step 5
While the background is still selected i then went to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur. Your best bet is to mess around and find something you like, I went with 2.5 pixels. This is very useful when you want to focus on what’s more important in your pictures, and reduce the amount of background noise. Next time I’ll try to work on a picture without me talking with my mouth full.
Finished
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