How to Clear the Clutter: Blurring Backgrounds for Engaging YT

How to Blur Background of Your YouTube Video

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

A lot of YouTubers like to vlog in front of blurred backgrounds. Blurring the background of your YouTube video is a fast way to make it look more professional – you stand out when you are entirely in focus, and everything behind you is blurry. Plus, it is an easy way to disguise the room you are vlogging from.

Even if your set is clean, there could be things like books behind you, which will distract viewers; they will be trying to read the spines. Blurring out the background of your shot makes your video look polished and keeps people’s focus entirely on you.

• Part 1: Blur YouTube Video Background in Shooting Videos
• Part 2: Add Tilt-Shift Effects to Video in Editing

Part 1: How to Blur Background of Your YouTube Video in Shooting Videos

Blurring your background is also how you create a beautiful bokeh lighting effect. Bokeh is when you blur lights in the background of your shot, creating halo-like circles of light. By attaching a filter with a shape cut out to the camera lens, you can even generate bokeh lights in other shapes, like hearts or stars.

Aperture refers to the hole in your lens which allows light into your camera. A narrow aperture lets in less light, and a wide aperture lets in more. The wider your aperture is, the shallower your depth of field will be. Widening your aperture also helps your camera perform better in low-light situations. Widening your aperture too much under the wrong circumstances can let in too much light and result in your footage being overexposed.

Depth of Field is the area of your image that is in focus. If you have a large depth of field, then objects close to and far away from your camera will all be in focus. Only a select area will be focused and the rest will be blurred if you have a shallow depth of field.

F-Stops are the measurement of an aperture’s width. The higher your f-stop, the narrower your aperture will be. To create a blurred background or a bokeh effect, you need a wide aperture, and thus a small f-stop. F-stops are written like ‘f/1.4’. You need an f-stop of less than f/4 to blur your background, and less than f/2.8 for bokeh.

1. Blurring and Bokeh

Blurred backgrounds and bokeh are very closely related. A bokeh effect is essentially a blurred background that includes lights.
To achieve a blurred background or a bokeh effect, you need to have a shallow depth of field. That means a wide aperture and a low f-stop.

2. How to Blur your Background

Place your subject – in the case of a vlog, your subject is probably yourself – in a shallow depth of field, and they will remain sharply in focus while everything behind them is blurred.

If the subject is yourself, you might need a helper to either operate your camera or stand in for you while you set up your camera. You will need to be able to check that the place you plan to stand or sit is in focus.

To get a shallow depth of field, make sure your aperture is wide. Do this by setting a low f-stop. Ideally, your f-stop will be 2.8 or lower, but if your camera cannot go that low, then f/3 or f/4 can also work.

Creating a bokeh effect is mostly the same, except that it works best when your subject/depth of field is very close to the camera, and you have a light source off in the background. Zoom Lenses do not usually have wide enough apertures to create bokeh backgrounds.

Blur Video Background in Post-Production with Wondershare Filmora Video Editor

If you need to blur the video background after shooting, you can use some video editing software to add the bokeh effect or the tilt-off effect in post-production. Here, I will show you how to do that in Filmora.

Filmora is one of the most widely used video editing software among YouTubers. Its user-friendly interface and tutorial guide enables green-hands to start video editing quickly. Besides, you can find many free filters, effects, and elements pre-programmed, so you can use them directly without looking for presets and templates somewhere else.

1. Add Bokeh Filter to Video in Filmora

There are about 20 bokeh effects available in filters and overlays. You can find them easily by typing bokeh in the search bar in Effects.

Note: you should select Included to see all bokeh effects pre-programmed in Filmora. If you need more visual effects, just go to the Filmstock effects store.

Double click the bokeh effect to preview the result, and if you find the bokeh effect fits the video, just drop it to the track above the video. And the bokeh filter or overlay will be applied to the video automatically.

2. Use Tilt-Shift Circle/Linear Effect to Blur Video Background

Filmora features two tilt effects, tilt-shift circle and tilt-shift linear, which allows you to highlight people in the video, blur, and conceal the video background.

Go to the Effects tab and then switch to the Utility menu under Included category.

Here, I will select the Tilt-Shift Circle effect and drop it to the track above the video. Now, you can adjust the size, position, and intensity of the tilt-shift circle effect

You see, the video background is blurred, and the people are highlighted. Now it’s your turn to download the Filmora video editor and try it yourself.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Streaming Wars: Who’s Leading – Vimeo or Popular Online Platforms?

Vimeo vs YouTube vs Dailymotion: Which Video Platform is Right for You?

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you are an upcoming entrepreneur who is looking forward to an effective video marketing strategy then you have to come to a decision regarding the portal you want to use for your marketing. As you should know by now YouTube , Dailymotion and Vimeo are the 3 major players in the field of video marketing. In this article, we are going to give you a comparative analysis of all these video sharing platforms so that you can select the one most suited to your needs.

• Part 1: Detailed Comparison of Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion
• Part 2: Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Compare Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion in 4 Aspects

1. Content

Before deciding which video platform to choose, you need to find out about the content in which each of them specializes.

Youtube: If your content is more related to entertainment then YouTube is the platform to go for.

Vimeo: Vimeo is a closed community specializing in videos by artists from various genres and is considered to be a more creative platform than YouTube.

Dailymotion: Dailymotion has a fair share of both but it resembles the YouTube trend.

2. Audience Size and Membership

Youtube: YouTube’s audience is large, with over 1 billion users that watch hundreds of millions of hours of content – each day! Vimeo has a much smaller for their audience, its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States.

Vimeo: Vimeo comes with 4 membership options – the Basic which is available for free and the paid Plus, ($59.95/ year) Pro ($199.00 a year), and Business membership ($599.00 a year). The storage level and support for each membership option vary. The free membership is limited to just 500 MB/week. YouTube and Dailymotion on the other hand are totally free, and Youtube gives unlimited hosting. However YouTube Red is a $9.99 subscription service that will allow you to watch ad-free videos and download them for watching offline.

_Read this Vimeo introduction >>> _

Dailymotion: DailyMotion is the world’s second-largest video-sharing website behind YouTube, statistics claimed by both companies show that YouTube has a significant advantage over DailyMotion in terms of unique site visits, totaling one billion visits per month compared with DailyMotion’s 112 million visits per month.

_Know more about Dailymotion >>> _

3. Limitation of Videos

Youtube: One of the best parts about this platform is that it doesn’t come with any upload limit.

Dailymotion: Regular users can upload 60 minutes videos of 2 GB limit and the quality of upload is limited to 1280 720p.

Vimeo: With a Basic plan, you can upload 500MB/week, with a Plus plan you can upload 5GB/week and with Pro plan you will be able to upload unlimited videos with a per-file limit of 25 GB.

4. User Experience

To begin with, both Vimeo and YouTube had a very similar kind of user interface. This has gradually evolved over the years and these days the user interface of Vimeo is more attractive than YouTube. Vimeo would give the user fewer adverts, offer easy navigation and of course, allow them to watch the videos on a large video player. Though these days YouTube is also offering a ‘theatre mode’ for the full-screen view along with a skip adoption, yet the quality of its user experience is still isn’t at par with Vimeo. YouTube is still trying its best to satisfy its one billion/month users but still, Vimeo is the winner when it comes to unparalleled user experience.

Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Before uploading your video on any one of these above-mentioned platforms the first thing you have to do is get your videos edited. The Wondershare Filmora is a comprehensive video editor that is ideal for use by beginners. With this software, you will be able to nicely edit a video even if you have no prior knowledge about video editing. This easy to use video editing software is loaded with lots of useful features which can be effectively used by the casual and novice editors. This software is packed with all you need to create good quality videos for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion. All you need to do is import the video clips and choose a piece of pre-programmed music and theme for your video. The software would then analyze your video clips and automatically create a video for you.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison