Adding a focus or blur effect to a photo can make it more interesting by highlighting or blurring certain parts of the image. To quickly blur the entire image, select the white checkbox to the right of the headline Focus / blur. Deselect the checkbox to remove the blur. To apply a focus or blur effect to specific parts of the photo, follow the description below.

Focus / blur settings

Set focus

Control what will be in focus and what will be blurred in the photo. It does the same thing as the Focus slider, but in a graphical way. This is how you use it:

1. Click the Set focus button. Your rendering shifts from color to black and white and the checkbox in the headline is automatically selected.
2. Move the cursor to your photo; a target symbol is now attached to the cursor.
3. Click the object that you wish to keep in focus. A blue selection is displayed in the photo, indicating which plane is in focus, as shown below. You can think of this blue selection as a closed room – everything inside the room is protected from blur. Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to make the blue selection wider or narrower. When you are satisfied, move the cursor outside the photo. 
   
   
   Illustration of the blue selection that is shown when using the Set focus feature.
   
   
4. Photo Lab automatically blurs everything that is outside the blue selection.
5. Use the Amount, Focus, Focus depth and Blur bleed sliders to achieve the desired blur effect in the photo. Click the Reset button to revert all sliders to their original settings.

Amount

Manually specify how much focus or blur that should be added. A low value, perhaps between 10 and 20, helps to add a nice yet subtle effect to the photo. Setting a high value for Amount has a more obvious effect on the image. It could make unwanted artifacts appear in the image, and is also an expensive operation in terms of time requirement.

Focus

Manually set the distance from the camera to the area that is going to look sharp. 

Focus depth

Determines how deep the area in focus should be.

Blur bleed

Adjust how sudden the shift from the focused area to the blurred area is.

Highlight focus

Check this box to preview where you have put the focus in the image. Your rendering shifts from color to black and white, and a blue selection indicates the focus area. (See image above for example.)