any processing at 208 to 212 by up sampling image c next using the f b map constructed at 212 the blurred background from image c is used to replace the background in image a to speed up this process blocks of memory from the blurred background image c may be written to the corresponding blocks of image a rather than replacing on a pixel by pixel basis finally at 218 image processing filters are applied to smooth the transition between the composited foreground and background regions of the composite image resulting from 216 variations of the foregoing embodiment are possible for example one or both of the images b and c could be pre view images rather than post view images also image b and or image c could be the same resolution as image a this can serve to avoid matching image resolution at 210 and or 214 fig3 illustrates the workflow of a second embodiment of portrait mode processing processes which are the same as those in fig2 are given the same reference numerals only the differences in the two workflows are described below in the embodiment of fig3 upon fully depressing the shutter button the camera takes four images of the same nominal scene in rapid succession images a and c 202 and 206.