Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create awesome speed effects from your photos using the Path
Blur and Spin Blur in Photoshop CC 2014 and later.
For you convenience, if you'd like to use this image as well,
its link in my video's description.
Before we begin, if you're not already a subscriber, hit that small Subscribe button at the lower right corner.
Make a copy of the photo by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
In this copy, we'll separate the car from the background by making a selection around the car.
There are many ways to do this, but for this example, I'll use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using this tool as well, drag it along the inside of the car including the driver.
To remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
Once you have a selection of the car and driver,
click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection.
We'll convert the layer with the layer mask into a Smart Object, so we can add filters
to it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper right corner and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Since we ultimately want to affect the background separately from the car, we'll remove the
car from the background by using Content Aware Fill.
First, temporarily hide the top layer.
Make the original layer active and make a copy of it.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the cutout of the car to make a selection of it.
Go to Select, Modify and Expand.
I'll expand it 10 pixels.
Go to Edit, Fill and "Content-Aware".
Click OK or press Enter or Return.
Deselect it and convert it into a Smart Object, as well, so we can add filters to it non-destructively.
Make the cutout of the car visible and with the background copy still active, go the Filter,
Blur Gallery and Path Blur.
Essentially, the Path Blur creates motion blurs along paths.
We have a choice of "Basic Blur" or "rear Sync Flash".
A Rear Sync Flash blur simulates the effect of a camera flash fired at the end of an exposure.
We'll use this for the car,
but for the background, we'll keep "Basic Blur".
The Speed determines the amount of path blur you want to apply to the image.
For this image, I'll crank the speed all the way to 500%.
Notice the blue path blur line.
The direction of the arrow determines the direction of the Path Blur.
It consists of a Start Point and an End Point.
The middle point allows us to bend the path.
We'll get back to the Path Blur line in a minute.
"Taper" allows us to trail off the blur.
A higher taper value makes the blur trail off more gradually.
For this background, we'll I'll keep it at zero.
Checking "Centered Blur" stabilizes blurs by centering the blur shape.
I'll keep it checked.
When you click the Start Point or End Point, it activates the "End Point Speed", which
controls the speed of the blur at the start and end of the path blur line.
I'll make the Start Point: 62 pixels.
I'll click on the End Point and make its end point speed: 0 because I want the background
at the rear of the car to have more speed than in front of the car.
You have the ability to drag the location of the path blur by pressing and holding Ctrl
or Cmd as you drag the Start or End Point.
You can extend the path line by simply dragging either of the points.
If your background is on a curved axis, you can curve the path blur by dragging the middle point.
In this particular case, the photo's perspective is straight, however, if your photo's perspective
is at an angle, like this one, you'll want the speed effect to follow the perspective
of the photo.
You can achieve this by placing multiple path blurs that follow the perspective
and then, increasing their End Point speeds.
We'll go over the Strobe effect next when we add the path blur to the car.
Generally, a path blur not only smooths out the image itself, it also smooths out any
noise or grain that may have been in the image before we applied the path blur.
We basically want to match the grain of the car to the background.
To do this, open the “Noise” tab.
Since every photo has its own amount of noise or grain, feel free to adjust the amounts
in the settings.
For the background in this photo, I’ll choose: “Grain”.
For the Amount and Size, I’ll type in 25% for each, the Roughness: 50% and the Highlights: 100%.
Make the car layer active and go to Filter, Blur Gallery and Path Blur.
Grab the the front of the Path and reverse its direction because we want the speed effect
to be behind the car making it appear to be speeding forward.
Choose "Rear Sync Flash" and make sure "Centered Blur" is unchecked.
I'll make the Speed: 223%
and I'll taper it: 18%.
Make the End Point Speed 12%.
Click the Start Point of the Path line and make its End Point Speed 147 pixels.
We won't add grain to the car, because it'll ultimately retain it original grain.
We'll make sure the Amount is 0%.
Open "Motion Effects".
No strobe effect is displayed if you set Strobe Strength to 0%.
On the other hand, when you set Strobe Strength to 100%, the strobe flashes are produced in
full strength but no continuous blur is displayed between flash exposures.
If you set the Strobe Strength to a middle value, it produce a mixture of individual
strobe flashes along with continuous blur.
When we increase the number of Strobe Flashes, it increases the effect of the virtual strobe light.
I'll keep the "Strobe Flashes" at 1.
Next, we'll make the wheels look like they're spinning using the "Spin Blur".
Open the Spin Blur tab
and drag the circular blur to the center of one of the wheels.
To resize the circle uniformly, go to a edge and when you see a double-arrow, drag it in or out.
To make it into an elipse instead of a circle, go outside one of the points on the edge and
when you see a curved, double-arrow, drag it in or out.
You can feather out the spin blur gradually within the shape by dragging the large points
called, "Feather handles".
You can control the amount of spin by either dragging the "Blur Ring" around the "Rotation Point"
or adjust the "Blur Angle" slider.
Yet, another way is to just type it in.
To add a new spin blur, just a click a location in the image.
To delete the Spin blur, press the "Delete" key while the Spin Blur is selected.
To duplicate a spin blur, click the "Rotation Point" in the center of the blur you want
to duplicate.
Press and hold Alt+Ctrl on WIndows or Option + Cmd on a Mac as you drag the copy to another location.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!