Blur mask?

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

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Jun 05, 2016 11:26

I have a photo with 3 young ladies in it. I removed a hairbun that looked like it belonged to the gal on the right (I have to admit, I've never really got the workflow of PhD, and for object removal and other qwik edits I still go to Photoshop 8! Yes, 8. Far less confusing, fewer steps, better results. And now want to blur the background. The camera focused on a person behind them, but the ladies are clear enough to make a nice photo with a little sharpening. So I make a mask of the gals and go over to the Blur control. My mask is gone. So, I can blur the entire photo and remove the blur after but just try and follow blurry edges, go ahead, I dare you, the end result is poopoo. Very frustrated this morning I have to keep going back to a 10 year old program of a competitor to do what I want. I keep TRYING to love PhD, but something about the logic escapes me.


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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 05. 2016 11:27

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PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Jun 05, 2016 13:50

Hello BarryTheCrab,

In my experience, some aspects of the blur tools (circular & linear) work very well. I couldn't disagree with you about the blur brush. The process of first demolishing pixels, then trying to return them to their previous state (eraser brush) is not implemented very well in PhD.

An ideal situation would be one where you could apply a selection mask, in the Adjustment module, then apply blur. In PhD this is not possible because the two tools are in separate modules.

Working with what we have, it's possible to generate a result that's far from "poo-poo"

In the screenshots abovem the circular blur tool was applied first - then a selection mask to decrease clarity & vibrance in the background.

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