Generating Speed Using Smart Filters in Photoshop

Smart Filters are a great way to be able to take a much firmer control of filters in Photoshop. In this article we are going to look at using a Smart Filter on an image to make the object of the photo appear to be moving much faster than it really is. It's a great technique to use on sports photography to give an image a dynamic look. 

Step 1 - Switch on Smart Filters

Open an image in Photoshop. I’ve chosen a creature renowned for its speed and agility.

Go to the Effects Menu and choose Convert for Smart Filters.

Step 2 - Check the Layers Panel

In the Layers Panel you will see that the layer has changed from a background layer to a Smart Object.

It's the conversion to a smart object that enables Smart Filters in Photoshop. 

Tip: If you wanted to instead, just right-click on the layer in the Layers Panel and choose Convert to Smart Filters. The result is the same either way.

Step 3 - Create a Selection

From the Tools Panel choose a selection tool. Im going to choose Magnetic Lasso for this particular image, you might find a different tool more appropriate for yours. 

Make a basic selection around your object, making sure that you have selected all its parts and extremities. The better the selection the more options you will leave yourself to work with. 

Step 4 - Refine the Selection Using Quick Mask

With the marching ants active, press Q to activate Quick Mask Mode to enable any refinement of the selection required.

Press B to select the Brush tool and D to set the colors to default black and white. 

Resize the brush to an appropriate size by pressing Control-Option while holding down the mouse and dragging it right to increase or left to decrease the brush size. 

Still using Control-Option and while holding the mouse button down, drag up to Soften the brush and down to harden it. This makes for a very cool and efficient, but mostly cool way to control your brush as you paint. 

Using X to switch the foreground and background colors between Black and White, paint around the edges of the Quick Mask until it's damn near perfect. Use white to add to the selection and black to subtract. 

Step 5 - Save the Selection

Now the selection is complete, but we're not ready for it yet. So save it. Go to Select > Save Selection and name it Outline. 

Now deselect the selection by pressing Command-D.

Step 6 - Apply the Motion Blur Filter

Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and in the options window that pops up set the angle to 0 and the Distance to 170 Pixels (your image might look better using different parameters). 

Step 7 - Add a Mask

You can see in the layers panel how the Smart Filter has been applied to a Mask called Smart Filters. 

Click OK.

Reload the saved selection “Outline” by choosing Select > Load Selection and from the Channel option choose Outline.

Select the Mask thumbnail called Smart Filter and press Shift-F5 to open the Fill options

Choose to use Black as the fill color for the selected area. The unfiltered image will appear inside the selected area. 

Step 8 - Refine Mask

The image might look a little to clean around the edges. So to add a bit more realism dust up the edges around the mask a little. 

Select the Brush tool as before, only this time reduce the brush opacity to about 20%. 

Using white as the foreground color paint some of the edges of the mask until they begin to blur, as you might expect on a fast moving object.  

So there you are, now you can turn any picture in to a high octane, super speedy action shot.