Blurring to Improve a Mood

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Blurring to Improve a Mood

Three digital soft focus techniques are included in the collection of Photoshop actions. The two use a simple overlay of a Gaussian blur of the original image to provide softening. Two different layer mixing methods are used to provide different effects. The third action, Stepped Blur, tries to mimic human vision and depth perception, by providing multiple, layered blurs, overlaid at different strengths. Examples of the results are shown below.

The original image

The image with the simple digital soft focus

The strength of the effect can be varied by changing the opacity setting of the overlay layer, in the Layers tool.

The image with the Gaussian blur overlay

This version creates an adjustment layer that multiplies a Gaussian blurred copy of the original image. Similar to the soft focus effect above, however this version darkens the image, as well as softening. Adjusting the final opacity settings varies the strength of the effect in the Layers dialog.

The image after using the step focus blur

The original idea for this action came from an article in PEI magazine. It aims to mimic the focal effects of the human eye.

The impact of these blurs can be very effective when used on the right images. As with all of these techniques, practice and experimentation is what gives the ability to get best results.

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