Okay, I want to get a certain effect, but I want to apply it selectively. I want that kind of foggy, out of focus effect, but I only want it applied around the edges of a picture, leaving the main subject in focus. I've thought about using a circular selection, feathering and inverting it, then using soften and adjusting brightness and contrast to do it, but I thought someone here might have a better idea of how to do it.

http://mediaspark.com/filters.htm has some free filters that MAY work for you, but probabaly you would be happier with using a feathered selection, and airbrushing out the edges. You probably know this already, but if you select all, then from the selection dropdown, you can choose MODIFY/BORDER, and that will give you a feathered frame selection around your canvas. Or, you can make a layer above, fill it with your canvas color, erase out over your focal point, then blur... just a few ideas, there are probably hundreds of ways....

You probably already know this too, but you can do some tricks like this with the History Brush too. One way would be to blur the entire picture until you have the amount of blur you want in the areas you want it, then go to the History palette and click the previous state to return the picture to an un-blurred condition. Then click the check box next to the line in the palette for the blurred state to set it as the source for the History Brush. Set the opacity settings to a fairly high number and brush in the blurred state wherever you want it. I do this kind of thing all the time to remove posterization in pictures I'm trying to enhance. Gromit

Try this: Duplicate your image in a new layer. Apply the filter to this layer. Now, add a layer mask and paint the filter effect into the areas you want it.

Or just use the inverted circle, give it a good feather (Go on be extreme :) ) Then apply Guassian Blur, it can be very natural and simple