Photoshop blurring help

[derekaxtell2000]

I have an excellent pic of a pheasant but the background from the birds feet to the bushes some feet behind are very distracting. I can obviously blur it with the appropriate tool, but what i would like to do is blur it gradually from the feet to the distant background (resembling if you had used a wide aperture when taking the picture.

has anybody got any ideas. Short of selecting a small width of the image and selecting a low blur, the the next strip and 1 blur higher, etc - but this does not give a very satisfactory gradual blend of a blur filter used.

HELP!

[mr.photoguy]

Try, and use lens blur. You may have to use layers, and experiment with the settings, and the blades settings.

[cmM]

it's a lot of work trying to replicate the OOF from the camera.
As Bruce said, you could use blur filters in photoshop (lens blur, or gaussian blur)
-Duplicate your image layer
-Blur (small amount)
-Play with the opacity of the layer
-Use the eraser tool to erase parts that you want sharp (w/e is in focus)
-Merge Layer
.......
Now do the same thing, with more blur and erase more leaving sharp and slightly blurred background, so the amount of blur gradually increases towards the top of your image (the "back" of your scene)

[griff2]

Ok, it's not too difficult in Photoshop:
i. open your picture and duplicate the background layer
ii. choosing the second layer, usually the background, add some gaussian blur ~ 3.8 say
iii. click on the top layer and add a layer mask choosing reveal all
iv. choose the gradient tool and make sure the foreground is black and ther background is white
v. drag the tool from where you want the most out of focus to where you want the sharpest

That's it. Here's an example using this method, origional:
http://www.griff2.co.uk/pictures/audi.jpg
Blurred:
http://www.griff2.co.uk/pictures/audi_blurred.jpg
This method won't give you nice bokeh, but will blur out a distracting background.

[chris.bailey]

if you use griff2's method using lens blur filter you can generate more of the bokeh effect though it does take some playing around with the settings to do it.