Get rid of distracting backgrounds
Depth-of-field is very important in portraits because a shallow one allows you to isolate the subject and separate it from the background, concentrating the viewer’s attention. To achieve this you need to shoot with a wide open aperture, but some lenses have wider apertures than others. Then there is the digital problem. With SLRs you get around half a stop more depth of field than you might expect, which isn’t a killer, but still a slight drawback. If you are using a compact digital, which have a much smaller sized CCD, then an aperture of f/2.8 suddenly produces the depth of field sharpness of something like f/16. Now that’s useless for portraits as it means everything behind the subject will be in focus. That’s one reason why compacts are aimed at point and shoot snappers rather than photography enthusiasts. This PSP X1 tutorial aims to reduce the depth of field in a graduated fashion to help the subject stand out from the background.
