Shallow Depth of Field

[Sepiana]

Hi everyone,

In this tutorial, George Peirson will show you how to create a shallow depth of field -- sharp subject standing out, popping from the background, blurred background. It's a very simple technique -- Gaussian Blur filter, layer mask, gradient.

How You Can Use Photoshop Elements to Blur a Background for a Fast Shallow Depth of Field Effect

NOTE:

Refine Edge is available in all Elements versions. Starting with PSE11, Adobe introduced an updated Refine Edge feature (brought over from Photoshop).

[Tpgettys]

This is the tutorial I referenced in CEC 146.

[pontiac1940]

Thanks. I've been using a simpler (but less critical) method to denoise dark backgrounds (when needed) and to soften backgrounds. As your video showed, it can really make a main subject pop.  
This is a recent example ... easy to over cook it which I might have done here.