Fordoing

The following photoshop procedure will allow you to create a realistic motion blur to your chosen photograph. This dead simple technique works great with pretty much any kind of car or movement based photo. i.e. a person or animal running.

Select the main focus

Duplicate the photograph layer and by using your favored selection tool  or as I have done it below carefully erase  around the portion of the image which will not have motion blur.

Cloning the background

On the orignal background using the ‘Clone Stamp Tool’  clone away a portion of the subject all around its edges. Don’t worry about being too neat as the rest of the process will obscure it. This will ensure that portions of the subject don’t bleed into the background when the motion blur is applied.

Time to apply the motion blur

{FILTER > BLUR > MOTION BLUR}

I used a setting of 0′ angle and 60 pixels in length for this photograph have a play to see what looks best for your photograph.

Add motion blur

Now make visible your hidden subject back on top of the blurred background.

 Touching up the transition area

Merge your background and focus layers and touch up the area between the subject and the blurred background with the blur tool . This will help reduce the sharpness of the transition.

Photo by Guerito

Written by Harry Ford

I'm Harry Ford Freelance designer & illustrator. Freelance since 2010 Fordoing is devoted to writing helpful articles for fellow freelancers. You can subscribe to the Fordoing Newsletter here. I'm most active on 'Twitter' say hello!

Photography Photoshop Tutorial

Posted in Photography, Photoshop, Tutorial