Blur the background of a photo

A lens with a wide aperture keeps the subject sharp and lets the background fall out of focus, which is why a portrait from a good camera looks different from a phone snapshot. This page produces the same separation from any photo: the subject is found, the background behind it is softened, and the two are put back together.

The Blur chip opens the strength control. Everything else on the page — the brushes, the shadow, the file type — works as it does on the other background pages.

1. Real depth. A lens blurs things more the further away they are; this blurs the whole background by the same amount. A fence close behind the subject will be as soft as the hills far away.
2. Things the subject is holding or touching that the model counts as background — a railing, the back of a chair — will blur too. Restore them with the brush.

How is this different from a blur filter?

A blur filter softens everything, the subject included. Here the subject is cut out first, the background alone is blurred, and the sharp subject is laid back on top, so the edge stays crisp.

How much blur looks natural?

Less than you think for a head-and-shoulders photo taken close up: 30 to 50 on the slider. More for a full-length photo against a distant background. Past about 80 the background stops reading as a place and becomes a wash of colour.

Why is there a soft glow around the subject?

Blurring the background spreads the subject's own colours into it, because they were in the photo. It is faint at moderate settings; at heavy blur, a colour or a made background gives a cleaner edge.

• Change backgroundThe subject on a colour, a blur, your own picture or a drawn background.
• Remove backgroundThe background off any picture, as a full-size transparent PNG.
• Background colourAny flat colour behind the subject, down to an exact hex value.
• White backgroundPure 255 white behind the subject, for listings, profiles and forms.