Today I'm going to show you one quick way to blur your background in Photoshop using
the new subject selection method.
Hi, my name is Will and this channel is all about nature photography.
So, for me, that means African wildlife, birds, and landscapes as well as the tools I use
to capture them. If you want to learn more about nature photography
with an African slant, then hit the subscribe button now!
You can also find more tips on my website as well as stories and information about some
of the greatest wildlife destinations on the planet. It's all linked down below.
So, I have to say, that I don't use this process a lot because most of the time I am shooting
with a fast f2.8 or f4 glass but sometimes I do use a slower telephoto
and I just want to tidy things up and make the background less distracting.
I've been doing it a lot recently with some older shots taken with the massive sigmonster,
the 6KG Sigma 300-800. At the long end the constant f5.6 aperture is fine and doesn't
need any help but at the wider end, 300mm, well, let's just say that f5.6 is not that
fast! So I wanted to tidy these shots up.
There's plenty of other ways out there and plenty of other videos but this one, using
subject selection is really easy and really suitable for wildlife photographers because
we are usually already starting with some background blur.
I also feel that it's unreasonable to think that everyone has f2.8 or f4 glass.
Not everyone wants to drop that much money on a hobby, so this technique will even up
the playing field because we can use it to improve the backgrounds of the many
new 600 millimetre zooms which all have a slower aperture of f6.3 at the longer end.
In wildlife photography we often have subjects we want to isolate -
after all that's one big reason for all these enormous telephoto lenses right?
At slower apertures or where the background is closer to the subject we can get some unsightly
bokeh or distractions.
In this photograph you can see that the background is detracting from the subject.
It would be nicer to get some more isolation in the image, the sort of thing a 500 f4 might
deliver.
Before jumping into photoshop make sure you have made all the adjustments you need in
Lightroom, especially noise reduction, you'll see why in a minute.
To take the image into Photoshop from Lightroom, right-click and then choose edit in photoshop.
Once it opens our objective is straightforward. We want to blur the background without impacting
the subject. To do that we'll create two layers and work
on them separately. One layer will hold the background and the
other layer will hold the subject.
Once the image is open you'll see over in the Layers panel, that the image is locked.
We can't edit it.
If you can't see the layers panel then go to the Window menu and select Photography
and reset to default.
To start off we need to create a new layer to edit that instead of the background
Just as an aside, I don't usually recommend unlocking the background layer as it is a
clean starting point and we are going to need it later anyway.
We can create a copy of the Background layer by dragging it onto the New Layer Icon.
Let's give it a name, how about 'Blur' not the band!
Now here's the cool part. Head up to the 'select menu' and choose 'subject'.
You can see that Photoshop has done a good job of selecting the subject!
The next step is to click 'New Layer via Cut' on the Layers menu.
We've now added another layer to the layers panel and If I click the eye icons to toggle
visibility we can see that it has split the image into subject and background
components. Exactly what we need!
Let's go ahead and name the subject layer.
Now, click on the blur layer to make it active and then head up to the Filter menu
We need to apply a nice Field Blur to this image.
Field blur is in the Blur Gallery menu item.
Once we've clicked we see a dial control come up on the window and we can move the value
to increase or decrease the blur.
Don't go crazy here! Just keep it believable and realistic.
Remember we want a natural result that looks like an F4 lens.
Once you are happy with the blur we need to tidy up the edges of our subject
so that it blends in nicely with the background.
We can do this by hitting the create layer mask icon. with the Blur layer selected.
Now, activate the mask by clicking it in the Layers panel and then hit the B key
to activate the Brush tool
We want a nice soft brush, so increase the feather on the brush
We also want a black brush to paint over the white background of the layer mask.
What this will do is reveal the detail held in the locked background layer underneath.
So, using the brush, carefully paint around the edges of the subject.
Take care to find all the areas of detail that have been blurred out in the Blur layer.
As we do this, we can see the detail slowly return.
Ok, so now we have a blurry background and a nicely defined subject and subject edge
But wait! we need to do more to make this image look natural and prevent any posterisation
in the exported file.
We need to add some noise back into the image! Yep! That's right! Noise!
So with the blur layer selected, not the layer mask, the actual blur layer.
Zoom in so you can see the noise pattern around the edge of the subject
We need to recreate that for the rest of the image.
So, head up to the Filter menu and select 'Noise', 'Add noise.'
A dialogue will pop-up. In the dialog, reset the value to Zero.
Make sure you also choose choose ['monochromatic' and Gaussian blur and then
using the UP arrow of the keyboard, slowly raise the noise level until the noise in the
blur layer matches the noise at the edge of the subject.
This value is normally between zero point seven and one point three.
Once you'e happy that the noise matches you can zoom out and admire your work!
Hit the save button to take the image back into Lightroom
for
the final touches.
Well, I hope this video shown you how you can add character and that 'expensive glass
feel' to your wildlife shots. Give it a try and please let me know how it
worked out for you in the comments. Maybe you have some better idea - let's hear
the pros and cons.
I'll be posting lot's more wildlife and landscape tips as well as taking you into the African
bush To see more, you know what to do - hit the
like and smash that subscribe button!