{"id":5762,"date":"2008-07-02T09:25:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T07:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/how-to-apply-a-depth-of-field-effect\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:29:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:29:39","slug":"how-to-apply-a-depth-of-field-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-apply-a-depth-of-field-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"How to: apply a depth of field effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many creative ways to bring attention to a certain area in your photos (a face, for example) in Photoshop. One of them is applying a depth of field effect, which keeps only a specific portion of the image in focus while slightly blurring out the rest of it. If you want to give a try, follow these easy steps.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Open the image you’re going to use and duplicate the background layer with Ctrl+J<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> Make a rough selection of the area you want to keep in focus with the Polygonal Lasso<\/em> tool or any other selection tool. Don’t spend too much time here, as we’ll soften those edges later on. After your selection is done, switch to Quick Mask<\/em> mode by pressing Q.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur<\/em> and apply a blur effect to make the selection edges smoother.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong>\u00a0 Switch back to Normal<\/em> mode and go to Select > Save selection<\/em> to save the selected area. Simply click on OK on the dialog window. Now if you go to the Channels palette, you’ll see that your selection has been saved as more channel under the name of Alpha 1.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong> We’re going to use this channel right now: go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur<\/em> and apply a blur effect grabbing the Alpha 1 channels as source. Also, make sure the “Invert” option is enabled.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong> If you feel the background area is too blurred, reduce the opacity of the top layer to obtain more definition.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong> One last step, which may not be necessary: if your selected area blends with the background, apply a layer mask to the top layer, use black as foreground color and paint the edges of your focused area to make it sharper.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n

8.<\/strong> And here’s the final picture!<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many creative ways to bring attention to a certain area in your photos (a face, for example) in Photoshop. One of them is applying a depth of field effect, which keeps only a specific portion of the image in focus while slightly blurring out the rest of it. If you want to give … Continue reading “How to: apply a depth of field effect”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2441],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-5762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336012,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions\/336012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=5762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}