Written By Steve Patterson

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we're going to look at an easy way to adjust the depth of field in a photo, keeping only a small portion of the image in focus while taking the rest of it out of focus. This is a great way to bring attention to a specific part of an image (someone's face, for example), and the effect is similar to how things would look if we had shot the photo with a wide aperture.

For best results, we'll be using Photoshop's Lens Blur filter to create this effect, which is available in Photoshop CS and later, which means you'll need at least Photoshop CS to follow along with this tutorial. If you're using Photoshop 7 or earlier, you can still achieve good results with Photoshop's classic Gaussian Blur filter, but the Lens Blur filter is the filter of choice for this effect because it tries to mimic how an actual camera lens works, whereas the Gaussian Blur filter simply blurs everything out.

Here's the photo I'll be working with:

Let's say we wanted to bring attention to the woman's face. There's lots of creative ways we could do that, but since her face is closer to the camera than anything else in the photo, the easiest way would be to limit the photo's depth of field so her face becomes the only part of the image that's in focus. Here's how it will look when we're done:

Let's get started!

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Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

Let's begin by duplicating our Background layer so that we're not harming our original image information. To duplicate the Background layer, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy:

For a faster way, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Either way tells Photoshop to create a copy of the Background layer for us, and if we look in the Layers palette, we can see our copy, which Photoshop has named "Layer 1", above the original Background layer:

Step 2: Select The Area That Will Remain In Focus

Using the selection tool of your choice (Lasso Tool, Polygonal Lasso Tool, Pen Tool, etc.), draw a rough selection around the area that will remain in focus. In my case, I want the woman's face to be in focus, so I'm going to use the Polygonal Lasso Tool, which you can find hiding behind the Lasso Tool in Photoshop's Tools palette, to select her face. Your selection doesn't need to be surgically precise, so don't spent too much time on it. In fact, we'll be softening the edges of the selection (commonly known as feathering the selection) in a moment, and we'll see how to fine-tune things if you need to a bit later:

Step 3: Enter Quick Mask Mode

Once you've made your selection, press the letter Q on your keyboard to enter Photoshop's Quick Mask mode. You can also click on the Quick Mask icon near the bottom of the Tools palette:

If you look at your image, you'll see that your selection outline has disappeared temporarily and that the area outside of the selection is now overlaid in red:

Notice how my selection looks pretty bad, but that's okay because we'll be softening it next.