Technique 7
This is a little technique I've been doing for a while now. It's really easy, but makes your picture look complex and interesting with very little work.
First, you'll need to duplicate your image layer. This way, we'll have one layer to blur, and one to keep as the original. You'll need make sure your layers window is visible first. (If it's not, go to your top toolbar and select: Window > Layers.) Once you've done that, right click the orignal layer in your layer selector, and select "Duplicate Layer" from that dropdown list:
You'll now have two copies of your image. Leave those alone for a little. To create the look we're going for, you'll need a tool called the "eliptical marquee tool." You can select this tool by going to your toolbar, right clicking the marquee tool, and selecting it from that dropdown list. Once you've done that, you'll also need to make sure it's set to "Fixed Aspect Ratio." (That's just fancy talk for making sure it stays an actual circle.)
After that's done, we can go back to the layers window and start doing the technique. Make sure the top layer is selected, then drag a cirle somewhere on your image. You should get something like this:
By highlighting that part of the image with the circle tool, you can now begin to move it. To do this, select the "move" tool (or just press "v" on your keyboard.) After you've selected this tool, just drag and drop the circle wherever you like. You should now notice the effect you're going to get:
By repeating this process, you sould get a really cool effect that looks something like this:
