Blurring Background

dastagg · Post by **dastagg** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:57 am

Using PI 10. Trying to select a variation of a background from around a person and having a hard time doing it to do a small blur on background. Background consists green leaves, branches and some sky background showing through the leaves. Using Magic Wand, it selects very spotty. Tried to adjust the Simularity but selects either a lot of everything or very spotty and not entire background. Any tricks?

trueblue · Post by **trueblue** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:06 am

Have you tried using PI's presets:.... In the Easy Palette, Image Enhancements, Photo Effects, Lens Filters, try some of the 'spot filters'

Alternatively, there's Blur. You can modify the presets by right clicking choose modify and make a setting to suit yourself.

dastagg · Post by **dastagg** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 2:31 am

Yes, somewhat works, but really wish to select all background and do some blur only on background instead of spot filter that blurs everything in a spot. Want to leave sharp the part of a person and blur out background only. Can easily do as I have done other things that have more solid background, but with multi variation, cannot seem to select background easily.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:09 am

Why not extract the bit you want to keep sharp and copy to a new image (for temporary storage) blur the existing image and then copy back the one preserved as an object.

trueblue · Post by **trueblue** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 4:49 am

What Steve suggested is good. If it was me doing this I would extract wide of the person..... use object/extract object and don't extract close to person.
When extract is completed and any left over pixels/residue is cleaned. try using the 'soften object edge' This gives a blurry edge to the extraction so it's not quite so harsh.
Place your object back into the photo that you've blurred..... you could also use the smudge and blur tools but on very very low sizes again to soften edges. Merge all.
This is something that you have to play around with until you get the desired results you need.

MaryLouW · Post by **MaryLouW** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:30 am

If you want to blur the background but not the subject, you might want to try Photo\Enhance\Add Vignette. That will allow you to put boundries around the subject and control the blur of the background.