How to speed up movement in sports images

When a moving vehicle is photographed, the true speed of its movement isn’t always captured. The background may be blurred so you can tell that it was a fast-moving object, but the object itself can look static. This is because camera’s try and stabilise moving objects so that they look crisp – a desirable feature in photography when you want no blur. However, in Photoshop, you can get more creative and create effects that you might not be able to do in-camera. And if you do it on a duplicate of your photo, you always have the sharp original to go back to.

Photoshop has a filter called Wind, which detects edges in an image and applies a blur, as if it’s moving. This technique is ideal for sports or motor photography.

By following these quick steps you can use the Wind filter for an instant injection of energy into your shots.

Step 1: Duplicate background

Drag your image’s Background layer onto the Create a New Layer button in the Layers palette. This will duplicate it to a new layer. Go to Filter>Stylize>Wind.

Step 2: Set up wind

In the filter’s menu set Method to Wind and Direction to either From the Right or From the Left. Notice in the Preview window how the effect looks.

Step 3: Strengthen the effect

If it doesn’t look very strong, simply apply the filter again by going into Filter and choosing the first option in the menu, Wind. This lets you keep adding more of the same effect.