Hi All this is another postwork tip for Photoshop involving the History brush.

I use it for creating a feeling of depth of view or "field" which helps to soften distracting backgrounds which are competing for your eye attention.
First of all we go to FILTER in the drop down menu, the BLUR and then GAUSSIAN BLUR. Change the pixel radius to taste and then apply the filter to the whole image.

Then go the HISTORY pallet and you will see the Gaussian blur that you have just applied, at the side of this you will see an empty box, click in this and a history brush icon will appear.
You have now set the source for the history brush.
In the history go back one state before you applied the Gaussian blur and the effect will now disappear

Go to the tools menu and choose the History brush tool, I normally choose a soft brush and reduce the opacity.

I can now paint onto the image the Gaussian blur effect in just the areas that I want in a very controlled manner creating reduced depth of focus and separating the main point of interest from the background.

You can also use this technique with the other filters too.

Hope you find this useful and have a great Christmas & New year.

Regards

Keith