Using the motion blur effect in your photos

Motion blur can add movement to photos where a fast shutter speed was used to capture the action.

You may have seen this photo on the photographing birds page.

A shutter speed of 1/640th second was not quite fast enough to freeze the wings allowing them to blur slightly. This gives a subtle impression of movement, making the photo a little less static. But what if we were after a more dynamic effect?

With the help of this Photoshop Elements tutorial you can edit similar photos to add that extra movement. Other digital photo editing software will have a motion blur filter so you can still make use of this tutorial even if you don't use Elements.

Selecting the background to add a motion blur

If this icon isn't showing in your program left click and hold your mouse button down over the tool that is visible and you will get a pop up menu giving you a choice of three different lasso tools. Select the one you want by clicking on it.

I am using Photoshop Elements 6 in this tutorial, if you are using an earlier version the icons may look slightly different but have the same purpose.

For this photograph we will actually select the owl rather than the background then swap them over before applying the motion blur.

If necessary zoom into the subject that you want to remain sharp in your finished digital photography project, so that it is easier to see the edges.

With your left mouse, click on the outline of the subject, then move the mouse around the shape without letting go of the button.

You will see a little lasso icon under your mouse pointer as you move along the outline. Continue in this manner all around the area you want to remain sharp in the finished project.

For this blur effect you do not need to worry too much about keeping exactly to the edges. For this photograph I left the ends of the wings out of the selection altogether!

When you reach the beginning point the selection will join up and you will get what is commonly referred to as the "marching ants" dotted line dancing around the part you selected. The following photo shows my finished selection.

From the select menu pick 'Refine Edge' and change the settings to smooth your selection a little, so its less wobbly. Add a little feathering to soften the edge and avoid a cut out effect. Lastly contract the selection a little so that some of the owl is outside your selection.

Once you are happy go back to the select menu and choose 'Inverse'. This will then swap things around so that the background is selected.

Adding the motion blur effect

More settings to make! Here you can choose the angle of blur. As we are trying to represent the direction the bird is flying we will leave that set to 0 or horizontal. You can play with the Distance until the background blurs to a degree that gives the effect you are after. For this photograph I used 22.

Once you click OK you will be able to see your finished project complete with convincing motion blur.

Here is my finished result.

And the zoomed in section, below, shows the effect the contracted selection had on the edges of the owl. Just enough to give a streaky effect that looks as though the bird moved just that bit too fast for the photographer to catch by panning the camera.