Flat phone photos usually have the same problem: everything is equally sharp, so your eye has nowhere to land. Blurring the background and sharpening the face fixes that, and it is the same trick a wide-aperture lens does for free. The catch is that the two effects pull in opposite directions, so the order, the amount and the edges all matter. Here is how to do it in MagicShot's image editor, and when to use only one of them.
What portrait mode actually does
Portrait mode on a phone estimates how far each part of the scene is, then blurs what is beyond a chosen distance. A regular camera shot, an older phone photo or a video-call screenshot has no depth data, so the effect has to be rebuilt afterwards: pick out the subject, soften everything else, and optionally add a little crispness to the subject.
Blurring a background
1. Upload the photo to the image editor.
2. Mark the subject so the tool knows what to protect.
3. Add background blur. Start low. A gentle blur looks like real depth of field, while a heavy one looks like a filter.
4. Zoom in on the edges, especially hair, glasses and fingers. This is where a bad cutout shows.
Single subjects work reliably. Group photos are harder because the tool must guess who counts as the subject. If people stand at different distances, expect uneven edges and fix them by hand or blur less.
Sharpening a face without making it crunchy
Sharpening adds contrast along edges, so it only helps if the detail is already there. On a soft, noisy or heavily compressed photo it exaggerates grain and blocky artefacts. Keep it modest: eyes, eyebrows and lips should look cleaner, not outlined. If skin starts to look rough or the hair gets a halo, you have gone too far.
The two-step order matters. Blur the background first, then sharpen the subject lightly. Doing it the other way round can pull sharpening halos into the blurred area.
Which one should you use?
Background blur only: the subject is already sharp, but the background is busy or distracting.
Sharpen only: the whole photo is slightly soft and there is nothing to separate from the background.
Both: a flat, evenly focused photo that should look like it was shot with a bigger lens.
Neither: the subject is actually out of focus or shaken. A stylistic filter will not rescue that, so use a deblur or enhancement tool instead.
Common mistakes
Blurring so much that the photo no longer looks real.
Blurring the part of the subject that is at the same distance as the background, like a hand or the ears.
Sharpening a face that is already sharp, which gives a brittle, over-processed look.
Forgetting that a plain wall behind the subject barely needs blur at all.
The guide to how to unblur a photo covers the opposite problem, where the subject itself needs detail recovered. For sharpening a whole picture, read how to increase image quality without losing detail.
