Problem with halo in Gaussian blur

1) Want to thank those who replied.  I'm always impressed with the generosity of people in this forum who are so willing to donate their time and expertise to help others.  Thanks very much.

2) Now that I think about it: Of course!  In blurring the entire image, of course I'm blurring the subject as well as the background.  If I then mask the subject, the blur will extend beyond the mask.  I missed the obvious.  I also learned about transparency lock.  I had no idea.

Again, many thanks.

Hi

This is normal. The transparency lock shown by olh21 will work if the selection is hard , but any softness and you will still get a blur.

The alternative is

a. Select the subject (as you did)

b. Put that selection as a mask on the upper layer (revealing selection)

c. Apply the same selection to the lower layer and use content aware fill

d. Apply  gaussian blur to the lower layer

Dave

if you try your solution duplicating the men you will have the same result

So you have to use the transparency lock on the background hence not duplicate your three man like you said but the background with a transparent area were your three man stand and the transparency lock.

I don't know no other way to achieve this result because you need the transparency lock

The original layer

The mask

the blured layer :see how the blur extend in the mask area

the masked blured layer resulting in a halo arround

Another layer with no mask and transparency

The result of the blur : see the halo

With transparency lock : No halo