Any photo which includes the motion blur filter is unlikely to be classified as fine art... but, it can be fun!
To me, background makes or breaks a photo. I do everything I possibly can to have clean or contextual backgrounds. Photographers pay many hundreds or thousands of dollars extra for lenses that are "faster," which have wider maximum apertures, allowing faster shutter speeds, and shallower depth of field, which give cleaner backgrounds.
When you've done everything you can and you still have a photo with a cluttered and distracting background, but you really like the subject, it's motion blur to the rescue!
Simply open a new layer in Photoshop, add a motion blur, and use a black paintbrush on the mask, to mask out the area you wish to remain sharp. You don't need to be perfectly exact, unless you want to. If the effect is a bit much, you can lower the layer opacity until it looks more natural.
That's all there is to it!
If all this is Greek to you, it's time to pick up a copy of one of Scott Kelby's introductory Photoshop books
without motion blur:
For more photos of San Diego State basketball (and cheerleaders...) look here.
