Photoshop help

slothmeister · 3 Feb 2008 at 16:59

Hi guys, i've got a shot taken at longleat a little while ago, and i want to blur out the background but not sure how to do it.

I've selected around the animal itself, but do i need to create new layers and cut it out?

I'm new to this whole PS malarkey - this is on CS3 if that makes any difference

V-Spec · 3 Feb 2008 at 17:07

You can select what you want, then right click on the selection line and click "select inverse" then go to filter > blur and select the blur you want..

(I think)

monkeyspank · 3 Feb 2008 at 17:23

V-Spec said:
right click on the selection line

nice tip

slothmeister · 3 Feb 2008 at 17:35

superb, thanks very much

V-Spec · 3 Feb 2008 at 17:38

A.N.Other · 3 Feb 2008 at 17:43

Cut out what you want with the marquee tool and CTRL-SHIFT-I selects the inverse. If you're cutting something out nicely and want a smooth line, using the pen tool allows you to create much smoother lines to fit curves properly. When you're done, CTRL-click the shape thumbnail in the layers palette and PS will do the selection for you. On any layer / mask / shape, CTRL-clicking its thumbnail selects only the visible stuff.

GSXRMovistar · 3 Feb 2008 at 18:01

Also use a feathered selection to blend the blur.

slothmeister · 3 Feb 2008 at 18:17

right then, me thinks i've asked for enough help in this forum today, but i have one last request.

A month or so ago i took these pics and played around with the colours and stupidly thought this looked good, i then went and saved over the original!

So if possible can anyone get this back to it's original colours? big picture warning though, if you can let me know what you did i would be very grateful as i have 3 that i did the same thing too!

http://cid-069db6cd511913ea.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/pics

A.N.Other · 3 Feb 2008 at 23:52

slothmeister said:
So if possible can anyone get this back to it's original colours? big picture warning though, if you can let me know what you did i would be very grateful as i have 3 that i did the same thing too!

http://cid-069db6cd511913ea.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/pics

Not possible, I'm afraid. There's no way to properly return to the original image once you've saved over it and don't have the original. One thing you could do would be to use the brush tool on 'colour' mode to paint colour into the B&W sections.