On 2009-06-10 08:13:08 -0700, C J Campbell
said:

On 2009-06-09 07:26:08 -0700, Brian said:

I took a photo of someone in a shop and the background is distracting.
I tried to use the blur tool to blur the messy background but this did
not look right. Is there a better way of buring a background so a
person stand out and the background is not distracting to the viewer?

I am using Adobe photoshop elements 7.

Regards Brian


Create a new layer and use Gaussian blur to blur the entire picture to
what you want. Then use the History brush to paint back the portions
you want sharp.

Actually CJ, that seems to be a pretty simple & elegant solution which
should work for the OP and his copy of Elements.
--
Regards,

Savageduck