Exploring filters

Filters can be used to add special effects to an image, such as blurs, distortions, special colors, and more. For the next photo of Angelica we'll be editing, we’ll use a filter to blur the background of a photo, similar to how the portrait mode in the camera app on many modern cell phones works.

To start the process, we’ll use one of the selection tools to select Angelica, then we’ll apply the Lens Blur filter to the image to blur the background area around Angelica.

Let’s open the file Smiling.png and save it as a Photoshop document before we start editing it.

Using the Object Selection tool

The first step in the process of applying the Lens Blur filter to the image is to select the subject of the photo. Photoshop has many different tools for selecting parts of an image, and which one we use depends on what task we’re trying to accomplish. When using the Content-Aware Fill option on the first photo to remove an object from the background, we used the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the object, since we didn’t need to be precise with our selection. However, since we’re selecting something that requires some more precision, we’ll use a different selection tool: the Object Selection tool.

The Object Selection tool makes it simple to select an object in an image, especially one that has a detailed edge to it. All we need to do is point at an object — Photoshop will look for its edges and use them to define the selection. Let’s use the Object Selection tool to select Angelica.

After clicking on the dog to select it, marching ants will surround the dog, as seen in the following screenshot:

The selection isn’t quite perfect — some tufts of hair might be excluded, or parts of the background might be included in the selection. Later on in the course, we’ll see how to refine a selection in order to make it more precise, but for now the selection we have will work out well for our purposes. There is something we can do to soften the edge of our selection, though, and make the transition from subject to background a little less harsh.

Feathering a selection

When working with selections, especially when we’re working with filters or fills, there may be times when we don’t want our selection to have a crisp edge — instead, we may want to have a softer edge for our selection that allows our effect or color fill to fade into the rest of the image. We can do that by feathering the edge of the selection. We can find the option to feather the edge of the selection in the Select and Mask properties panel, which is accessible in the Options bar.

Let’s feather the edge of the selection we made before we apply the filter to the image.

We won’t immediately see any changes to our selection, but we will notice the effects once we apply the filter to the image.

Applying a filter to an image

Now that we’ve selected the main focus of our image, we’ll apply the Lens Blur filter to the background that blurs it and helps make Angelica the focal point of the image. We can do this through the Filter menu. Once we're done applying the filter, we'll deselect the dog so we can see the full effect of our work.

With the filter applied, the background is now blurred and should look similar to the following image:

Let's save our work before continuing on.