Tip of the Day: Increasing Sharpness in Portraits

Well, this tip may not make sense right away, but I promise this technique works. When the background in a photograph is distracting, a portrait will not look right. The more out of focus the background is, the better. This is because our brain will not pay as much attention to elements that are not in focus, and will naturally cause the eyes to seek out elements in focus. To increase the sharpness of the portrait, consider blurring out the surrounding area. Applying additional blur around the face will not make it sharper per se, but will cause an increase in perceived sharpness, because the rest of the photograph will be much blurrier. The easiest way to do this with Photoshop is with a layer mask. Create a copy of the background layer, and apply a blur filter to it. Once you got the blur the way you want it, create a layer mask, and use a soft brush to cover the area of the image which should remain sharp.