How to Blur Background in Lightroom: Step-by-Step Guide

Is your camera setting not enough to conceal some details to focus on the main subject in the photograph for achieving the viewer’s attention? Don’t worry! We’re here to give you advanced ideas regarding making your photos engaging. Thanks to Adobe, which has introduced a wide range of fantastic tools in Lightroom to provide our pictures and videos a glorious look.

 It’s compulsory to acquire knowledge about how to blur background in Lightroom that we’ll deeply study in this article to perform wonders in the photography field. Stay with us to get a comprehensive understanding about different tools that are used in blurring backgrounds of any image and to get awareness about the functionality of these tools. Moreover, we’ll discuss very streamlined steps involved in blurring background without ignoring the advancement due to AI in this process. 

Before discussing how to blur background in Lightroom, we should know the importance of this feature. There are certain conditions in which disguising the background becomes compulsory because not all the elements within a photograph are equally important. For instance, you’re taking shots of a couple in a wedding ceremony, but many other guests are also captured by the eyes of your camera. 

In that case a wedding couple is the focus subject while all other individuals are of secondary importance, so you’ll try to increase the prominence of the couple, and that’s only possible by blurring the background. It’s compulsory to learn how to blur background in Lightroom to ensure the viewer’s attention right on the focus subjects in your photograph. Moreover, blurring backgrounds offers our images a more stylistic and dramatic look that shows our professionalism in photo editing. 

Similar to object removal tools ( Discussed in “How to Remove Objects in Lightroom“), there are also three distinctive tools, including Brushes, Radial Gradient, and Linear Gradient, to blur the background in Lightroom. In different photographs, the type of focus subject is also distinctive, so we need to blur the background in various ways using a wide range of tools. That’s why we’ll discuss three different methods by using various tools to make the blurring process in Lightroom very easier.  Let’s discuss all methods in detail:

You’ve to follow the following steps to blur the background in Lightroom by using the Brush tool:

Step 1: Import your desired image in Lightroom and navigate to the Develop Module at the top of Lightroom.

Step 2: Next, you’ll create your mask on the specific area that you want to blur. To do this, head to the “Brush Panel” and choose any preset brush effect. You can also create your custom preset brush effects by making certain settings. 

Step 3: In the brush panel, select “Show Selected Mask” and paint over the area that you want to blur using a brush. Your selected area will be shown in red color so you can easily adjust the location where you want to apply the blur effect.

Step 4: This is the last and very important step to learn how to blur background in Lightroom using a brush tool. In this step, you’ll tune up the blur effect by adjusting the value of Clarity and Sharpness according to your desire. After getting an optimal result of the blur effect, you can save the image.

If the focused object in your images is in oval or circular form, then this method is as right for you as rain. You must follow the following steps to blur the background of photos in Lightroom:

Linear Gradient is more beneficial than Brush and Radial Gradient because it offers more control to users than two others. That’s why I prefer it to blur the background in Lightroom. Moreover, it’s more appropriate for photographs having a horizontal background like in the case of a landscape. If you’re also curious about using this simplest and unique tool, you’ve to follow the following steps:

If you don’t have a PC and want to blur the background in the Lightroom mobile app or Lightroom Mod APK, you must follow these straightforward steps:

The first thing you’ll do is to import the image directly into the Lightroom app using the lower right icon that appears on screen.

Once you’ve opened the image you must be sure that you’re in the Edit mode of Lightroom.

In order to blur the background, first, you need to separate the focus element from the background using the Masking tool, which is located in the lower panel of tools.

After going into Mask mode, click on the +icon located at the bottom right corner of Lightroom screen, to create a new mask.

After clicking on the + icon, you’ll see different options for blurring images, such as selecting a subject, selecting the sky, Brush, radial Gradient, and linear Gradient, similar to Lightroom for PC( discussed in the above three methods). 

You need to choose “Select Subject” to make a faster selection of your focus element within the photograph.

Suppose there are several subject or focus elements within the image, or it’s something complicated to select. In that case, you can choose the “Brush” tool to manually paint the layer of mask on the desired section of the image that you want to blur.

If you’re interested in blurring the background, you need to invert your mask layer only to affect the background. For this purpose, hit on the icon at the bottom left corner above the delete icon.

When all is done, click on the “Detail” option at the bottom, adjust “Sharpness” and “Noise” through sliders to create a blur effect in the background. Finally, save your image in Lightroom Cloud storage or share directly on different social media platforms to get prominence.