Creative Effects Challenge No. 220 - Adamski Effect

[Tom]

A recent thread on Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) caught my attention and I found it quite interesting.  This Creative Effects Challenge invites you to explore one way to simulate ICM, known as the Adamski Effect.

Video tutorial on the Adamski Effect (FYI: the second half of the video is simply the creator showing additional results and discussing alternative ideas)

Here are the steps I extracted from the video, along with their time-stamps:

1. Choose an image with an identifiable subject that appears in its entirety, with a background that is not too bland (1:00)
2. Duplicate the image (Ctrl+J) (2:15)
   
3. Select the subject (this is almost the entirety of the work to be done!) (2:30)
   
   1. Later versions of PSE have a Select Subject feature (Alt+Ctrl+S)
      
   2. You can also use the Quick Selection Tools (A) and/or the Lasso Tools (L) to do this step
4. Zoom in and correct any errors in your selection to make it as accurate as possible (see 2:40-5:00 in the video for tips and techniques)
5. Once you are satisfied with the selection copy it onto a new layer (Ctrl+J) (5:05)
6. Expand the subject (6:00)
   
7. 1. Select the subject by Ctrl+click the subject layer
      
   2. Click the copy of the original image layer
      
   3. Click Select | Modify | Expand... and set Expand by: to 10
   4. Click OK
      
8. We now are going to remove the subject from background layer (6:40)
   
   1. Control-click the subject layer to select the subject
      
   2. Select the background layer
      
   3. Click Edit | Fill Selection... and set Use: to Content-Aware (use the Clone Stamp tool if your version does not have this)
9. All that is left is to blur the background layer: Filter | Blur | Motion Blur... (I used 300 px at -45 degrees, but use what looks interesting to you) (8:00)

There you go!  Pretty easy actually; basically just select your subject and blur the background.  You can view the video from 8:30 on for ideas of extensions to this technique.

Here is my example for the Adamski Effect:

Adamski Effect	Original from Pixabay

I look forward to seeing where you take this!