How to create this circular effect in Photoshop?

Question

I would like to replicate this effect in Photoshop or Illustrator, with a preference for Photoshop. So far, I have been unsuccessful. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

In the middle there's a clean unblurred piece of a photo. The rest of the photo is blurred; seems to be radial spin blur.

The blurred photo is covered by two grey spin patterns:

• inner disk, more transparent, edges a little emphasized
• outer disk, less transparent

This is a derivative that uses the principle above:

The derivative was created as follows:

• take an empty layer, give to the layer name Outer disk
• draw over the layer a thick black irregular freehand line from corner to corner
• be sure that the line is thickest at the ends
• goto Filter > Blur > Radial, mode =spin, max range
• repeat the blur until it it seems smooth enough; in the example actually 2 different spin blur layers were created and merged
• Insert a photo as the bottom layer
• make a circular selection NOTE: all selections must have the same centerpoint as the spin blur , ie. the center of the artboard
• copy a selected piece of the photo and paste it (=paste in place) as the top layer. Name that layer to "Sharp center photo"
• use the same selection to make a hole to the spin pattern (the hole is needed, you need an edge)
• make another, larger circular selection
• cut a piece from the spin pattern
• paste the piece as new layer, name it "Inner disk"
• adjust the opacities of Inner and Outer disk layers
• blur the photo in the bottom layer. The first example has gaussian blur. See the other example with radial blur at the end of this story.
• emphasize the edges of the inner disk

Emphasizing the edge has many possiblities. Here a copy was made and used Filter > Stylize > Find edges. The white was deleted by the Magic wand + DEL. The rest got 2 pix Gaussian Blur. The layer is named to "Inner disk edge". Optimal solution would be to have the right black shape drawn before the first radial spin blur. The shape defines the black gradients.

Example 2: The photo has Radial Blur, mode=Spin

There are still many subtle details that this receipe does not cover.

Answer 2

• Photo Layer - > Convert to Smart Object (Makes Layer 0)
• Duplicate Smart Object (Makes Layer 0 copy)
• Edit > Transform > Scale and enter 110% in the W and H fields at the top of the screen : Hit OK. (enlarges layer)
• Filter > Blur > Radial Blur > Spin @30% > Click OK
• Duplicate Blurred Smart Object Layer 0 copy ( Makes Layer 0 copy 2)
• Edit > Transform > Scale and enter 110% in the W and H fields at the top of the screen : Hit OK. (enlarges layer again)
• Double-click the Radial Blur item under Layer 0 copy 2and set to 15%
• Create circular Layer Masks on Layer 0 copy and Layer 0 copy 2 to hide inner portions of that particular layer.
• Add Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow set to a black to create the indication of drop offs.

This is a wrestler Google found (with reuse permission) using "John Smash" as a search term... I thought I'd stay on theme a bit.

This is also reusable.... double click Layer 0 to open the smart object... place any new photo in that window, save, close and the main document will update with the new photo leaving the blurs and masks in tact.