This tutorial was written for ImagineFX magazine Issue#5.
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Close up elements.

To create depth of field, the objects that are out of focus should obviously be blurry.
It is hard to achieve a convincing result without spending a lot of time and effort using a soft brush exclusively.


A very quick and simple way to achieve a similar result is to draw the object you want to be out of focus in a separate layer.
Use a one to two pixels wide brush with flow and opacity set maximum. Now, go crazy and sketch using thin lines in different colours, cross hatching, don’t hold back.
Apply a Gaussian blur filter to the layer, and you will see that all the messy strokes suddenly looks as if they belong to a complex object that is out of focus.




Making a messy sketch using a thin brush and then applying a Gaussian blur filter is a quick solution for creating the impression of a complex object that is out of focus.