Using Gaussian Blur to Add a Sense of Depth to Your Second Life Snapshots

We all know that blurring parts of a photographs help create the effect of depth in a photograph. This is most clear with macro and portrait photographs. This tutorial is about how to add ‘Shallow Depth Of Field’ in photoshop. There are many ways to achieve this effect, but the basics are explained here.

This tutorial is written using Photoshop CSII, but the overall idea works with other image editing software too.

The hard (and thus more detailed) way

We use this one if their are neirby objects, other Avies, trees, …

This is the snapshot I’ve used for the tutorial, feel free to download (larger version) it, if you want to try this yourself.

When we look at things in real life, our eyes focus upon a certain point. Everything around it will be blurry. How blurry depends on the distance the object is from the focus point.

Let’s say we focus on the parts in red, then the yellow parts will be a bit more out of focus, the green ones would be even more out of focus and the blue parts will be totally blurry.

Now here’s how we are going to do that in Photoshop:

We open the file and make sure we have the Layer Palette showing. If that’s not the case, go to ‘Window’ ‘Layers’ or press F7. You now have only one layer titles ‘background’. Right click the layer in the layers pallete and choose ‘duplicate’. Name the duplicated layer ‘No Blur’. Repeat this step 3 times and call the other layers ‘Soft Blur’, ‘Median Blur’ and ‘Heavy Blur’. Make sure you do it in that order! Your layers palette look something like this now:

Now we need to add a gaussian blur to the layers. Select the Heavy Blur layer by clicking it in the layers palette and go to ‘Filter’ ‘Blur’ ‘Gaussian Blur’. Choose 10 px as radius and press OK. Do the same for Medium Blur (radius 5 px) and Soft Blur (radius 2 px).

Now we select the layer ‘No Blur’ and go to ‘Layer’ ‘Layer Mask’ and select ‘Hide All’. A layer mask serves to hide parts of a layer. If it’s white it shows/shines through, if it’s black nothing shows/it’s covered.

Now you select your brush and make sure the white color is on top in the tools palette. I advice to set the hardness of your brush to zero. (Right click on the picture with the brush selected and set the hardness to 0%. Change the size depending on what you need for a certain part of the picture). You select the mask in the Layers Palette. Make sure it’s the mask you have selected, not the layer itself! Paint on the picture with the white brush on the parts you want to be sharp. (The parts that are marked in red in the example.) When you are finished, your Layer Palette will resembe this one:

Now do the same (adding a mask, and whitening out the parts you want to show) for the ‘Soft Blur’ and ‘Median Blur’ layers. If you feel uncertain about your masking work you can add a new layer below the ones you’ve already masked (’Layer’ ‘New’ ‘Layer…’ or Shift+Ctrl+N) and give that a very bright color, so you will see if you left any parts out.

If you are done, this should be your layer palette:

And this is how the photograph will look like:

The Gradient Way (for if you’re standing in an open landscape).

This is more quick, dirty, easy, … but based on the same proces as the one above.

Duplicate your background layer twice, naming the layers Original and Blurred. Apply a Gaussian Blur of 8 pixel radius to your ‘Blurred’ layer. Add a layer mask.

In your toolbar on the left select the gradient tool and and on the top left part of the corner select the black-white-black thingie. (If that toolbar is not showing, go to ‘Window’ and select ‘Options’.)

Make sure you are selecting the layer mask and not the layer and click the picture and drag. A line will show and when you release your mouse button/drawing pen your layer mask will have a gradient fill. Experiment a bit until you get it right. If your fill is black-white-black in stead of white-black-white, just switch the colors on the tool bar. The most black part of the mask must be where the feet of your avatar are.

Now the only thing left to do is selecting the brush tool again, make sure we’re painting with the black color and on the layer mask and paint over our avatar. Et voila: quick and dirty depth of field. You may applaud yourself. ;)

If you have any questions, remarks or if you notice spelling mistakes, don’t hesistate to leave a comment, to drop an email or to contact me in-world.