Fun with Smart Filters

Smart & Easy Background Blur

I’ve had a few friends send me beautiful floral shots over the past several weeks with the question, “What should I do with this picture?” In response, I suggested that they blur the background using Smart Filters (Photoshop CS2 and later). To my surprise, they said they’d never thought of that, hence my decision to share it with you today. It’s a super simple technique that you may have seen before using a duplicate layer, though this method is faster and more efficient. Read on!

Step 1: Open a Soon To Be Blurry image, like the beautiful iStockphoto.com shot shown below, and choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.

Step 2: Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. In the resulting dialog, severely blur the image by dragging the Radius slider to the right. Press OK when finished. Your entire image will look blurry but don’t worry, you’ll hide some of it in the next step.

Step 3: Over in your Layers panel, you’ll see two layers appear below your image layer. One is the Smart Filter mask, which looks like an empty (white) image layer, and another labeled “Gaussian Blur” which represents the actual filter (it looks like a layer style). The mask lets you hide the blur from portions of the image that you wish to remain sharp. Click once on the white square in the Layers panel and you’ll see a tiny hairline rule appear around it to let you know it’s active.

Step 4: You can think of a layer mask as digital masking tape, as it allows you to hide portions of a layer (just like you’d hide your baseboards with masking tape before you paint the walls). In the realm of the layer mask, painting with black conceals and white reveals. Since you want to hide part of the blurry layer, you need to paint with black. Go ahead and press B to grab the Brush tool (circled) then take a peek at the color chips at the bottom of your Tools panel (also circled). If they’re not black and white already, you can set them to the default of black and white by pressing D. Press X to flip-flop the chips until black hops on top.

Step 5: Trot up to the Options bar and choose a big soft brush from the Preset Picker by clicking the tiny downward pointing triangle circled below.

Step 6: Mouse over to your image and click the area you want to remain sharp, like the center of this photo (feel free to click multiple times if you wish). If you mess up, you can always press X to flip-flop your color chips so that white is on top, and repaint the area to bring back the blur (remember, black conceals and white reveals!). You can also experiment with different brush sizes too.

TIP: You can use the right bracket key, ], to cycle up in brush size, or the left bracket key, [, to cycle back down.

Step 7: If the blur is a little too strong, you can lower its layer opacity. Just double-click the tiny icon to the right of the blur layer (circled) and the Blending Options dialog will appear containing an Opacity field and slider. Make your changes and then press OK to close the dialog.

Here’s the before and after:

TIP: To get a before and after yourself, click the little visibility eye to the left of the Blur layer to temporarily turn it off.

What an incredible difference this simple technique makes! And since you used a Smart Filter, you didn’t have to duplicate your original layer (which adds fat to your file size) and by using the mask that tags along with a Smart Filter, you don’t have the added step of adding a layer mask. Sweet!

Until next time, may the smart blur force be with you all!