How to Add Motion to an Image in Photoshop CS

This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to add fast Photoshop motion effect background that you can use to turn an ordinary parked or slow vehicle into high speed mode.

You will learn how to use the motion blur and radial blur along with creating smoke venting from the rubber and tailpipe.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Media computer with high resolution screen
• Good graphics card
• Large RAM capacity to open and work with multiple files
• Digital photos
• Adobe Photoshop CS1 ~ CS4
• Patience
• Time to practice

1. Open your favorite vehicle image, it can be a car, speedboat, aircraft, rocket, or a person running, soccer ball, etc. I chose a picture that I downloaded from the site www.istockphoto.com., a Lotus Elise sports car for this lesson.

2. You may have to resize, sharpen, adjust color, adjust brightness/contrast to the image you want to use. Depending on your needs.

3. 
    
   Untouched image

   Choose the polygonal lasso tool and trace the shape; outline of your subject. Right click mouse, click "Select Inverse". So now the background is selected, not the subject itself.

4. 
    
   Motion background

   - - For the Background Motion Blur - -
   
   From the tool options bar, Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Choose the angle, depending on the background of your image. Then enter any digit in the "Distance" box. You may have to experiment with both these effects until you get the result you want.
   
   If you are not satisfied with the result, go to Edit in the tools option bar, click "Undo..." to revert to the previous state, and start the "Blur" process over.
   
   I also motion blurred the road portion in front of the speeding car, to make the image less obvious being edited, and to add a more realistic "passing" road surface; foreground.
   
   Note: In some cases, partial background objects that are to be blurred appears through vehicle windows, or in the rear view mirror and side view mirrors, and even on the reflective body paint/metal surfaces. Be sure to "Motion Blur" and / or "Radial Blur" those areas as well.

5. 
    
   Tire smoke effect

   - - For the Smoking Tires Effect (optional) - -
   
   You can add smoke to the tires when you want to create an illusion that the car just started out in gear. To do this, create a new layer. Use the Paint Brush tool or Airbrush tool the size relative to your image, paint some white or gray circles near/around the wheels, then blur them using a combination of Radial Blur and Motion Blur.
   
   Add new layers on top of the existing "smoke" layers to build up the smoke effect, one layer at a time, until you are satisfied with the result on your image. The trick using new layers each time is if you make a mistake, or if a particular layer does not meet your expectation, you can just delete that corresponding layer without doing all over again the previous layers/steps that are perfect.
   
   Instructions using Blur:
   (1) From the tools option bar > Filter > Blur, or
   (2) From the tools option bar > Filter > Radial Blur (once you are here, enter the attributes of your choice. You will have to experiment to see what is best on your image).

Tips & Warnings

• You may also want to intense the saturation or sharpen a bit to make your subject stand out against the background in your final print.
• If you are editing a static vehicle, be sure to Motion Blur and/or Radial Blur the wheels to make it look spinning. Use the Polygonal Lasso tool to trace the shape.