How do i blurry a layer so everything behind it will be blurried?

Question

I've got some photoshop problems, I'd like to make a layer blurry everything behind it, if that is possible please help me, or give me some options that may help.
example: http://i.imgur.com/kUG7B5p.jpg
They just put anything behind it and then it gets blurried: http://i.imgur.com/W36Xq8p.png

Answer 1

Your question isn't too clear, and your examples don't really help explain what you mean.



If you are talking about photos with a blurred background, then these are not edited. These effects are called Shallow Depth of Field. It's done in the camera, not in Photoshop.



Understanding Depth of Field here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm



Although you can certainly fake shallow depth of field in an image editor, it's much easier to do it in the camera. To fake it, you'd need to extract the image from it's background, add a new layer to act as the background layer under your extracted image, then blur that layer.

Answer 2

Your questions isn't very clear, and your "examples" don't help much, either. There are too many photos on that page, I don't know which one you're talking about.



So I now have to guess what you actually mean, and I THINK you are simply talking about a shallow depth of field. That is something you achieve via your CAMERA, not via "photoshop".



DOF - Depth Of Field

DOF is the area (plane) of the photo that is in sharp focus. For landscapes, we usually want a very deep DOF, so that everything in it is in focus. For portraits, we usually like to have the person in focus, while the background is blurred.

So you have a plane that is in focus - and it can be either in the foreground (so the background is blurry) or in the background (so the foreground is blurry).



To achieve a shallow DOF (for background blur and/or bokeh), you need the following (in order of importance):

1) longer focal lengths - the longer it is (i.e. more zoom), the stronger the effect becomes - so 200mm is much better than 35mm

2) distance - a subject that is CLOSE, a background that is further away.

3) a lens with a large aperture (f/1.8 or f/2.8 work best)



Often people ask how to achieve with a small P&S camera, but unfortunately that is not something those little things are very good at because of their VERY TINY sensors. Even the better bridge camera still have MUCH smaller sensors than a DSLR does. However, given enough zoom, many of them can still get there to a certain extent.



If you have manual controls, use the biggest aperture. If you don't, try setting it to the portrait setting which makes the camera choose the biggest aperture it is capable of. Make sure there is some distance between you, the subject, and the background. You can also attempt it on Macro setting - that may work to a certain extent.



For further reading, check out this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

And here is a website with really good examples: http://www.althephoto.com/concepts/selectivefocus.php

Answer 3

Do you mean where they've positioned the logo, a bit like a panel of frosted glass? There are different methods of selective and creative "blur". Since you appear to be referring to post-production effects, not in-camera, it would be more helpful if you place samples of the images you wish to work with in an online gallery, then provide links to them here and describe precisely what you want to do with them.