Forced Focus Tutorial

Here is a photo of the Adobe CS box in a tranquil background setting. The tranquil being the rocks, waterfall, flowers, morning sunlight, etc. in the background. Since I’d rather have you focus on the Adobe box, than the tranquility, we’re going to need to make some changes to this digital photo.

We’re going to first use the Polygonal Lasso tool to select the portion of the image we want our viewers to focus on. The Polygonal Lasso tool is located under the Lasso tool in the toolbox. If you click and hold on the Lasso tool, a pop-down list of tool choices will appear. You need to select the Polygonal Lasso tool.

Use the Polygonal Lasso tool to select the main object in the image. I selected the Adobe CS box and the rock it’s sitting on since they are both in the foreground, or positive shape, in the photo. Over the rock especially, I click the mouse many times as I used this tool as that allows for a more natural contour of the rock shape. This selection tool only uses straight lines. Be sure to do Select > Save Selection… before moving on so you don’t have to re-draw with the Polygonal Lasso tool every time for every layer (unless you want the practice ).

Remember, we want to make adjustments to the image’s background, not the foreground. But wait a minute!! We just selected the elements in the foreground! We can change this selected area very quickly and easily by choosing Select > Inverse from the menu bar at the top. Doing this switches the area that is selected, which means that any changes we make will now happen to the background only, or the area opposite to that which we selected.

As I’m sure you already know, Photoshop comes with a wide selection of filters already installed. We’re going to use one of them now. Since I want this photo to appear as if it were taken with a macro lens (which would blur the background), we’re going to apply a Gaussian Blur filter. To do this, we select Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur from the menu bar.

Once you’ve selected Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur, you’ll be presented with a dialog box which allows you to adjust the amount of blur you apply to the image. You can choose a value (by entering it in the box or by using the slider) between 0.1 and 250. Set at 0.1 blur, there is no blur. Set at 250, the background blurs into a single color. You’ll see the changes in the image window in the dialog box. If you’ve checked the Preview Box, you’ll also see the changes in your original image (I recommend doing this). You may notice that your cursor turns into a hand when you pass over the image in the dialog box. This allows you to move the image in the dialog box so you can see a different portion of it. Just click and drag.

After you’ve selected the level of blur and clicked on the OK button, you will see your image with the blur applied to the selected area. If you are happy with the result, choose Select > Deselect from the menu bar, name this layer Gaussian Blur, and then save your work (remember to use Save As…). With the blur applied, it is really easy to focus on the main elements of an image!

You can apply any of the filters to the selected area, but some work better than others. Try them out. Experiment! You’re going to try several and turn in at least 5 separate layers in your file. Be sure each time to turn off the layer of the last filter so you’re only seeing the layer you’re working on. Here’s an example of the same thing using the Filter > Brush Strokes > Angled Strokes filter.

If you saw the movie Schindler’s List, you know how effective color can be when it’s set against a backdrop that has no color. A colored object really jumps off the page when the remaining image is a grayscale. Using the same image, let’s remove the color from the selected area by choosing Image > Adjustments > Desaturate from the menu bar. The result is below.

*The End*