i submitted this picture a while back, without the blur, the whole picture was in focus. here i used the blur tool in photoshop and blurred everything but the subject... did i do it right? let me know how it looks. i had a hard time because it blurs more as you hover above it while holding the mouse.... know what i mean? as opposed to dodging and burning where in the same click and hold of the mouse, you cannot dodge or burn the same area anymore then other areas, unless you click and hold again.... i hope i am making sense :confused: i also need to work on my run-on sentences :p anyways, thanks for the help and good luck reading my sad explanation.

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Hi Mark

If I understand correctly your are trying to get your background to be less busy. That's a good idea for this image and should be easily accomplished with the help of the selection tool. The blur tool is nice but won't always be very precise. You can over do it if you're not careful or it can come out looking blotchy.

Since the main mariachi man is your intended focus. Get your lasso tool (I prefer the magnetic one myself) and carefully follow the contours of the parts you want to keep sharp, I generally do the selection part at 100% magnification viewing so I make sure to only select what I want and there's no accidental spill over. Once he is completely selected press Control-C and Control-V to copy him into a layer. Now right click on the background and go back to your original background layer. From the Filter menu select Blur>Gaussian Blur and choose a setting. This I would play around with to find what is comfortable for you and how blurry you want everything to be. Now flatten your layers and your mariachi man should come screaming out of this image.

You can also use other blur tools from the filter menu to apply different effects to the background too (like motion blur or radial blur). Hope that helps and makes sense.

Regards,

CL, thanks a lot, i was wondering the whole time if there was a general blur tool. i guess i need to read my huge photoshop book more. i will definitaly give it a try because i was worried about the blotchyness that you were talking about. im glad you understood my sad description. thanks alot!