hey!
this really helped make my pictures pop moree[:
thanks sooo much for making this !
Photoshop: Put Your Subject In Focus
This tutorial will go through how you easily can put your cat, flowers, or anything else in focus. I will be adding a blur to emphasize the subject, and create a vignette. Since this tutorial uses the Lens Blur filter for the fake bokeh effect, you will need Photoshop CS.Step 1
We will need an image, so I took this image from Turbophoto. It's suffering from overexposure, so I did a quick edit using the Brightness/Contrast and Selective Color tools. You can either use the unedited original, or just grab my smaller version.
Step 2
Enter the Quick Mask mode, select a fairly large soft brush and paint over the lower flower with black.
Step 3
Exit the Quick Mask mode and invert the selection (Shift + Ctrl + I). Go to Filter - Blur - Lens Blur and play with the settings. Make something that you find works with the image.
The radius increases the blurryness, the blade curvature the roundness of the fake bokeh, and the rotation affects the bokeh's rotation. The bokeh is actually called "Iris" here.
Step 4
Time for the vignette! Select the Elliptical Marquee tool and draw an anti-aliased feathered selection. I used a pretty high feathering of 50. Invert the selection and go to Image - Adjustments - Levels (or Ctrl + L). Drag the middle slider a bit to the right to see the edges darken. Finally drag the left slider slightly to the right to make the darkner areas even darker.
Step 5
Congratulations! You just finished your new image. Doesn't it look a lot better now? A tip is, if you don't want to use brushing as a method, you can also use the gradient tool. You can of course go over the areas you want blurred with a smaller brush, for a more detailed look.
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