Blurring a background. How?

[Dinarius]

I have shot a cake stand with a window and curtains a little out of focus in the background. The client would now like the background to be very out of focus. Re-shooting is not a possibility.

1. How can I make the background out of focus?

2. While doing this, what tool should I use to isolate the cakes and cake stand?

Cutting around the cakes and cake stand will be nigh on impossible, so I guess I would need to be able to "paint" in blur, if this is possible.

If someone can direct me to a link that would take me through the process, that would be great.

Many thanks.

D.

[sniper]

Without seeing the pic it's hard to suggest the best way, but if you have CS3 the quick selection tool is pretty good, otherwise theres the magic wand, or quick mask where you just "paint on" the masked area.  Photoshop has lots of different ways of selecting an area these are just a few of the easy ones.
For the blur, the easiest one is gausine blur, lens blur is better but a little harder to apply and get right if your not experienced with photoshop.    Wayne

[01af]

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/re...unds/index.html

[rovanpera]

Photoshop has "Lens blur". With lens blur a mask can be used to control the amount of blur.