Stationary to Motion Blur Tutorial
This tutorial is for anyone who would like to know how to turn a bland, boring, stationary image into a fabulous looking motion blur shot that appears as if it was never stationary!
First, go to any Photo Travel location and take a shot from the side from a reasonable distance. Make sure that you set the arperature all the way up to 22, and I would suggest increasing the exposure a few ticks and maybe even change the white balance a few ticks so that your shot is a little different, and not like everyone elses! Also, make sure that you don't turn the wheels. (You can also take a shot in Photo Drive, and if you do, make sure the shutter speed is all the way up to 4000.
Here is my stock shot:
Next, once you have a shot taken and everything is ready to be shopped, take it into Photoshop and make a marquee selection around the car with the polygon lasso tool, as shown here.
After you have selected the car, go to select, feather, and put a value of 2 in.
Your next step after making the selection is to go to edit, copy. Than create a new layer, go to edit, paste, and it should appear into its own layer. If you turn off the background layer, this is what you should see.
Your next step will be to make a layer with the car cut out of it. To do that, duplicate the background layer by right clicking on the BG layer in the layers palette and clicking duplicate layer. Make 2 copies of the BG layer. Once you have done that, hold control and click the layer of just the car in the layers palette that you create earlier, and a marquee should appear around the car. While making sure you have one of the duplicated BG layers selected in the BG layer, push delete on the keyboard. If you turn off all other layers except the one you just deleted the car out of, the car should be gone. Do this for both of the layers you copied.
Next, you will apply the motion blur to one of these layers, while you will apply a gausian blur to the other, as shown above. Make sure the motion blurred layer is on top of the gausian blurred layer. When applying the motion blur, simply select the layer with the car cut out of it in the layers palette, and go to filter, blur, motion blur, and you can apply a value of your choice. The more the blur, the faster it will look.
Then select the other layer with the car cut out of it and go to filter, blur, gausian blur, and put a value in around 7-10. Again, make sure that the motion blurred layer is on top of the gausian blurred layer.
Now that you have that done, you can turn on all the layers and it should look as if it is in motion, as this image shows.
As you may have noticed, the wheels are not in motion. That's what you will fix next. To do that, make sure you have the original, untouched BG layer selected in the layers palette, and in the tools palette, select the oval marquee tool. With the oval marquee tool, make a selection around one of the tires/wheels, and feather the selection to 2, as shown below.
Do each wheel one at a time, and copy each one on to its own layer. Than in no particular order, selected one of the wheel layers in the layers palette, and in the layers palette, hold control on the keyboard, and click on the layer. This should make a marquee around the wheel. Then go to filter, blur, radial blur, and give it a value of between 30-50. You can do less or more, whatever suits your eye. Do this to both layers, while making sure they are both on different layers.
Now if you have done all of the steps properly, and all of your layers are in order... Here is the order:
Plain, untouched layer on bottom
Gausian blurred layer next
Motion blurred layer next
Car only layer next
2 wheel layers next
This is what you get!