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Widening the aperture on your camera is the best way to blur your photo background. But did you know that you can also add effects that blur your background in Lightroom Classic and Creative Cloud (CC)? Keep reading to discover some of the best ways to do this.
1. Reduce the Image Clarity to Create a Blurry Background
Reducing the clarity in your photo will help create a blurrier background. However, you should only use this if you want to minimize clarity in your main subject. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an effect that doesn’t look too great.
Here’s how to reduce overall clarity in your photos and subsequently blur your background in Lightroom Classic and CC:
It’s a good idea to enter a ballpark number you think would look good before then adjusting with the slider if you feel like it’s necessary. If you want to learn more about how Clarity works in Lightroom, check out our guide onwhat Clarity is and when you should use it.
2. Use Lens Blur to Add a Blur Effect to the Background
Adobe added Lens Blur to Lightroom in 2023, and it’s an excellent way to blur the background of your pictures in the app. Besides automatically adding blur to your photos, you’re able to use Lens Blur tocreate your own bokeh effectsand more.
To use Lens Blur in Lightroom, follow these steps:
How to Use the Lens Blur Visualize Depth Feature in Lightroom
Visualize Depth lets you view your changes and determine how much blur is in your images. Once you’ve enabled this feature, you can also control the areas that you add blur or focus. As a result, your final result will be more accurate.
To use the Visualize Depth tool, simply scroll down to Lens Blur and tickVisualize Depth.
3. Use AI Background Masking to Blur Your Background
Lightroom Classic and CC both have an AI masking tool that helps you blur the background of your photos. You don’t need to manually select anything, making it a straightforward option for masking if your picture has very clearly defined backgrounds.
Use these steps to make the most of Lightroom’s AI background masking feature.
4. Use Linear Gradient to Blur Certain Parts of the Background
If you only want to blur the background in certain parts of your image, manually masking your background with Linear Gradient is a viable alternative to AI background masking. It’s also ideal if Lightroom doesn’t detect a background in your photo.
Linear Gradient lets you select a large area of your image and add new effects. Here’s how to use it:
You can also use the Radial Gradient filter to add effects to parts of your picture in Lightroom. We’ve got a full guide onhow to use Lightroom’s Radial Gradient toolif you want to learn more about that.
5. Use the Brush Tool to Blur Specific Parts of Your Background
If you want to blur specific parts of your background that won’t work with Linear Gradient, you may use Lightroom’s Brush tool instead.
Using the Brush Tool to Increase the Clarity of Your Foreground Subjects
One way to make your background look blurry in Lightroom is to increase the clarity of your foreground subjects. After selecting the Brush tool, use these steps to achieve this result:
6. Use the Dehaze Tool to Blur the Entirety of Your Photo
One way to blur the entirety of your picture is with the Dehaze tool. However, you should use this sparingly; too much can result in your photos looking unrealistic.
To use the Dehaze feature in Lightroom, follow these instructions.
7. Use Post-Crop Vignetting to Blur the Corners of Your Image
Post-crop vignetting will blur out parts of the background in the corners of your image. It’s a great tool if your photo has high levels of contrast, and it’s really easy to use:
You can use each of these tools in different scenarios to achieve a better blur effect in your Lightroom images. However, it’s a good idea to use them alongside your camera. You should make sure that you’ve increased your aperture to a reasonable amount if you like taking blurred background photos, especially for portrait and product shots.
