Focus!: Using Blur to Focus in on Your Subject

With fashion photography we see photographers attempt an on location shoot with a gorgeous background.  Too many times though, the background overshadows the true subject of the photo which is the clothing or the model.  It’s necessary to take the focus away from the background and put it back on the model to make an impact.  This can be done by simply cutting out your model using a low feather setting in Photoshop, copying it to a new layer, then applying a gaussian blur to the original layer.  In the photo below, I have also increased the exposure on the model layer to brighten it up a bit.