Make Subjects Leap Out of a Photo

Back in the 1950s, 3D movies were a short-lived fad; wearing special glasses, you got to see things seemingly leap off the screen and into your lap. This was well before my time, but I've been told you could also get something of a headache.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to add some three-dimensional snap to my photos without any headaches. So let's see how you can get that effect by isolating your subject and then smearing or blurring the background. We've done some projects that include blur, like the one described in "Make Portraits Pop With Blur." This week we'll go beyond traditional "soft focus" and do something a bit more creative.

Load a picture into your favorite image editing program. As usual, I'll use Corel's Paint Shop Pro, but you can get similar results with almost any program. Find a picture of your own with a strong central subject, or download my sample photo, save it to your hard drive, and then open it in your image editor.

The easiest way to handle a project like this is to build it in layers. Choose Layers, Duplicate. You now have two identical copies of the picture, which are represented in the Layers palette on the right side of the screen. If you don't see the Layers palette, turn it on by choosing View, Palettes, Layers.

Now that we've made our layers, it's time to isolate the subject from the rest of the picture. The easiest way to do that is usually with the Smart Edge selection tool. To get to it, select the Freehand Selection Tool, which lives in the fifth cubby from the top of the toolbar on the left side of the screen. Then, in the Tool Options palette on the top of the screen, choose Smart Edge in the Selection type box. If you don't see the Tool Options palette, you can toggle it on by choosing View, Palettes, Tool Options.

Let's start with the version of the image called "Copy of Background." Click on the edge of the subject, then move the mouse pointer a short distance along the edge, stretching the "box" to contain the edge you want to select, and click again. Notice that Smart Edge finds the edge between the subject and the background and selects it. Continue to work your way around the subject. When you get back to your starting point, double-click to finish the selection.

Now choose Selections, Invert. You'll see the selection change in a subtle way; instead of the subject being selected, now everything except the subject is selected. To completely divorce the subject from the background, press Delete. It won't be obvious, but the background in the top layer ("Copy of Background") has disappeared. To see for yourself, hover the mouse pointer over the top layer in the Layers palette and look at the thumbnail preview.

Now for the fun part! Choose Selections, Select None; we don't need that selection anymore. Then select the bottom layer ("Background") in the Layer palette so whatever we do will happen to that image. Choose Adjust, Blur, Motion Blur from the menu and click the Zoom Out button (the magnifying glass icon on the far left of the Motion Blur dialog box) several times until you can see the whole image. You might also want to make the dialog box bigger so you can see the image more easily.

Change the angle of the blur to about 45 or 50 degrees and set the Strength to 100 percent, then click OK.

If you used my photo, which has a relatively low resolution, you probably will have a satisfying level of blur. If you used a high-resolution picture, you may run into a gripe I have with Paint Shop Pro: Motion Blur, even at maximum strength, can be kind of anemic with high-resolution pictures. If you're using a pixel-laden image, the blur from a single application of the tool may not be nearly enough to suit your purposes--so feel free to run it a second time. Leave all the settings the same and click OK. That doubles the blur in the background, which might be fine. If you like the effect, save your image. If you want more blur, run the effect a third time.

You can run other effects on the background layer to add some more punch. In my final image, for instance, I've also lowered the saturation, significantly draining the background of its color. To do that, choose Adjust, Hue and Saturation, Hue/Saturation/Lightness, and drag the Saturation slider to suit your taste.