Stefan’s Stuff

On my Flickr account I put a modified photo of a lady waiting to cross 3rd Avenue (Original here). I'm not at all a Photoshop expert but two of the comments asked me how I did it so, here it is after the Break.

Music I'm listening to right Now:
"On a High" by Duncan Sheik from the "Daylight" Album.

  Assuming you have Photoshop:

1. Load the image in Photoshop and Select the "Gradient Tool" by hitting "G" Make sure the Options look like this:
2. Select "Quick Mask: by hitting "Q"
3. Since
   we want her entirely in focus, drag you mouse from her waist to about
   80% the height of the screen. The Line should look like this:
   
4. Once you let go of the mouse, you'll get a mostly red image with the lady being fairly un-obscured:
   
5. Exit "Quick Mask" by hitting "Q" again. Your Image has a circle around it now:
   
6. Now we apply "Lens Blur" by selecting "Filter"->"Blur"->"Lens Blur". In this case, I used these settings:
   
7. Hit OK, let it do it's Magic, Clear the selection by using the Drop Down menu "Select"->"Deselect" and save your results.

All Done. Hope this is useful. If you like it, leave a comment (Assuming my comments work! programmers should NOT tinker with their Own Blogs…)