BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

Photography Question 

Nicholas J. Birchak
 

How do you do that?


How do you make a picture blurred around the subject almost in a circle blurred? is that a filter or what?


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October 30, 2006

 

Mark Feldstein
  Take a look at the dance sequence from west side story on my web site and let me know if that's the kind of technique you're asking about. 2 actors in the middle while the dancers around them are blurred??
Mark


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October 30, 2006

 

Mark Feldstein
  Hey Nick !!! I took a look at your gallery. You've got a good eye and I like what you've got there. One small problem I noted is that a lot of the images appear to be a bit soft. Could be in the uploading rather than in scanning.

More to answer your question above, you can use a softar filter with a clear spot in the middle and beyond that, the image will appear softer, out of focus but not necessarily indicating movement. What I do is either judge the exposure for a scene like the ones I mentioned on my site and come up with a slow shutter speed, like 1/15th or 1/8th of a sec. When you've got movement of some and others standing still, the movement will be blurred, the people not moving should be pretty sharp.

OR, behind door #2, you can use a bit of fill flash to freeze movement in a part of a scene, like the center two actors in the dance sequence I mentioned. For that you can shoot at less than flash sync speed, even down to 1/15th or again, 1/8th of a sec. That'll freeze the motion of the area exposed to the flash, while outside the flash zone, the movement will continue to be blurred.

Anything else, just hollar.
Mark


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October 30, 2006

 

W.
 
You can do it in PP too, Nick: just select the parts* of the image you want blurred with the magic wand, then apply a blur filter (e.g. 'motion blur').

* for a contiguous area hold shift while selecting.


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October 31, 2006

 
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