Blurred Understanding

(Click the image to see a larger version)
One of these images is a fabrication of the truth. On one of the two images above, I selected the subject's surroundings, and applied a motion blur filter, creating the illusion that the subject was in motion.

Here's how I did it. Using the polygon lasso tool in Adobe Fireworks, I traced out the subject of the image. The edges of the selected area were then feathered (blended with the outlying region) at 2 pixels. Because the intention is to blur the background, and not the subject, you must invert the selection. To invert the selected region, hit CTRL+SHIFT+i. The background is now selected, and you can use the Filters menu to activate the Motion Blur Filter. Select Filters>Blur>Motion Blur...



The motion blur dialog box appears, and it's sole purpose in life is to ask you to give the direction the motion blur should move, and the distance to shift the blur. Obviously, the larger the distance, the more pronounced the blur will appear.

But how about the true motion blur... this happened because the f-number was at 5 when the image was taken, and I was actually tracking Devin as he moved by. We'll discuss f-number (f-stop, aperture) in another post.