Step 7: Apply The "Gaussian Blur" Filter To "Layer 1"

We're done working on our main subject. Let's finish things off by reducing the importance of the rest of the photo. Click on "Layer 1" in the Layers palette to select it. The currently selected layer always appears highlighted in blue in the Layers palette. We're going to blur the rest of the photo, and to do that, we'll use Photoshop's Gaussian Blur filter. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur:

This brings up the Gaussian Blur filter dialog box. Set the Radius of the blur to around 10 pixels. Again, you may need to increase or decrease this amount depending on the size of the image you're working on, but 10 pixels generally works well:

Click OK to exit out of the Gaussian Blur dialog box, and if we look at our image in the document window, we can see that the background is nicely blurred out while our main subject remains sharp:

Step 8: Reduce The Color Saturation Of The Background With "Hue/Saturation"

As a final step, let's lower the color saturation of the background, which will help the main subject stand out even more. With "Layer 1" still selected, click once again on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Hue/Saturation from the list. There's no need to hold down the Alt / Option button this time:

When the Hue/Saturation dialog box appears, drag the Saturation slider towards the left to reduce the color saturation of the background. The further you drag to the left, the more you'll reduce saturation. I'm going to drag my slider to a value of around -25:

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box, and we're done! Here, after reducing the color saturation of the background is my final result:

And there we have it!

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