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Welcome to this fourth Photoshop tutorial on MBDisign. In this tutorial we are going to blur the background of a picture to create some more depth. If you do this the right way few people will know that this effect has been done in Photoshop, as this effect can also be gotten with your digital camera. This can be a bit difficult though, and if you have got a very cheap camera it might not even be possible.
So with that said, on with the tutorial!

This picture here, of a monkey sitting on a small wall, will be our base. When choosing a picture it is best to chose one which has something in the foreground, like in our basepicture.



Open the layers window by pressing F7 and drag the background layer towards the sixth icon from the left, the one that is directly to the left of the little dustbin. You can also click on the background layer and press Ctrl+J twice. Your layers panel should then look something like this:



Select the top layer and go to Filter -> Extract or press Alt+Ctrl+X. A new dialogue screen should now pop up. On the right select a small brush size of about 10-20, depending on what you like. Then start drawing around the outlines of your foreground, so not on them but around them. Also, make sure that the green lines which you have drawn form one closed barrier around the foreground.



When you've made sure that the green lines which you have drawn form one closed barrier around the foreground click the little paint bucket on your right and fill the area within that 'barrier', so that your picture will look something like this:



Now press "Ok" and the part that you have painted over will be extracted. Now press F7 again and click on the little eyes next to the downmost and the middle layer to deactivate them. Your picture will then look something like this:



As you can see some pieces that shouldn't have been removed were removed, like in the bottom right corner. Also, some pieces that should have been removed weren't, like around the monkey's body. To remove the unwanted parts simply use your eraser, chosing a small sized brush. To return the parts which were accidentally deleted select the History Brush from your tools or press "Y", and then paint over the parts which were accidentally removed to return them.
Your result will look something like this:



Open the layers window by pressing F7 and activate all layers again by clicking on the small box on the left of the downmost layer and the middle layer. Select the middle layer and then go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and move the dialogue box so that you can clearly see your picture. Now play with the radius a bit, and keep checking your picture to see what looks good. This is very important because Gaussian Blur may create a halo around your foreground object which you might or might not want. If you don't want that halo I'd suggest chosing a low radius of around 2,0 pixels. If you do want the halo you should pick a higher radius of about 4,0 pixels or more. Below is a small comparison, with from left to right the original picture, with a Gaussian Blur of 2,0 pixels and with a Gaussian Blur of 4,0 pixels.



The final result will depend upon the radius of your Gaussian Blur, but I have chosen for the 2,0 radius. Another thing I did was select the top layer and use Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen so that the foreground became a bit sharper. You can do the same or even repeat this a couple of times, but don't overdo it.



If you want to you can change the levels, hue, saturation, contrast, brightness, blending mode and many other things of the top and middle layer for different effects. Try to experiment with this and see what looks best for your picture.

If you have any questions about this tutorial, simply send me a PM or post a message on the forum.