Motion Blur

In this tutorial, we will learn how to make a motion blur effect using Photoshop. This will give more focus to the main objects in our picture -especially in the crowded pictures- and will give more life to the image too.

Open your image in Photoshop.
Press (Ctrl+J) to duplicate the Background image and rename the new layer to "Motion Blur".
Now, we need to select the non main objects in our image so press (D) to set the foreground and background colors to the default, Select the Brush Tool (B), click "Edit in quick mask mode" (Q) then set the foreground color to black and paint all the non main object areas. You will notice that the painted areas are painted in red, you can click the "]" and "[" keys to modify the brush size as needed, I like to have a big brush for the outer areas and smaller brush size when I come close to the objects. Notice that you can click "Reverse Foreground and Background colors" (X) any time if you do any thing wrong to erase the wrong masking and (X) again to continue.
Press (Q) again to exit the "Edit mask mode", Press (Ctrl+C) and (Ctrl+V) to make a new layer of the selection then rename the new layer to "Main".
Select the "Main" layer, select the "Magic Wand Tool" (W), right click the eye next to the "Main" layer in the Layers window and click "Show/hide all other layers" to show only the "Main" layer.
Now, select all the empty area of the "Main" layer, make the "Motion Blur" Layer visible again and select it, press (Ctrl+C) ,(Ctrl+V) and rename the new layer to "BG".
Select the "BG" layer and click Filters > Blur > Motion Blur, set Angel = 0 and Distance = 33 Pixels.
You can get another effect by selecting the "BG" layer and clicking Filter > Blur > Radial Blur instead of "Motion Blur".

As you can see, you main object now has more focus especially if you have many people or other objects in the background.

The Original:

Motion Blur:

Radial Blur:

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Current Comments (1)

S@m@nth@ Said,

Mon, 21 January 2008 23:44pm (GMT)

Best tutorial ive tried!