Name: blur the background of image (GIMP)
Prep time: 30 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: GIMP

In this how-to I will show you how to blur the background of your photos using GIMP. I like this kind of cool effect who makes the photos more "professionnal"

In the image below you can see some cool examples of nice photos with blur backgrounds I found (photo credits in outro).

Open GIMP and load the photo you want to edit. For this how-to we will use this pretty blond girl

(photo credits in outro).

To blur the background we need to split the image in two parts:
• the girl
• the background

For this, we need the "free select" tool. Click the lasso icon to use it.

In "tool options" box:
    • Check "Antialiasing"
    • Check "Feather edges"
    • Set Feather edges Radius to

1.0

With the lasso tool ("free select"), start the selection by clicking somewhere in the photo, then click around the girl to make "selection points".

Use middle mouse button to easily scroll in the image while using the selection tool!

Finish the main selection by joining the start point with the last point of selection. Just click around until you reach the last point, then click on it.

Okay! now the main girl shape is selected.

GIMP saves the active selection when you save your work in XCF file. Save now your current work (by clicking

File

then

Save As...

) so the selection will be saved too!

Now we need to remove some parts of the selection, because we just want the girl to be selected. Just switch the lasso to "Subtract mode" so each selection we will make will be removed from the existing selection.

Like we did in step 4, but this time in "subtract mode", click around the area to select all the area then click the last point to complete the area.

You should have something like this.

Repeat the operation for the other parts remaining.

Click

Select

then

Float

. This will cut the active selection and immediately make another layer with the selection. Now the image has 2 layers: the background and the girl.

Float

is a shortcut to cut and paste as a new layer.

Double-click the layer named "Floating Selection (Floated Layer)" to rename it to "girl". Doing that will transform the floated layer into a "normal" layer.

Click the "eye icon" to hide the "girl" layer. Then click the background layer line so GIMP knows that we want to work on this layer.

Now we need to reduce to white part in the background layer. To do it we will duplicate the background into the white shape. Click the stamp icon to start cloning!

To start cloning, GIMP needs a "source circle". To set a "source circle", press

Ctrl

then click somewhere in the image. Here, we want to clone the background into the white part so just set the source in (1) then put your mouse at the right side of it to get ready to clone.

is the source circle

is the destination circle

Now hold left click and go up to clone all the way up!

For the horizontal parts, just do the same as step 15 but horizontally:
• Set the source circle up then put your mouse on the bottom
• hold left click and clone all the way to the right

Each time you release the left click, the source circle comes back to its original position. This can be useful for the right armpit, so we can spread around the grey background!