A Gentle Touch

These are the photos I started with:

Then I added a soft focus.

I have tried before to create this effect in photoshop but I could never get it quite right. After using several brushes, blurs, and combinations, it looked rather nice but it was not "the" soft focus I was looking for. Well, that has changed. After doing some basic research online I have at last discovered the technique, and it is surprisingly simple.


Follow these 5 easy steps and you can do it too!

1. Open your photo in Photoshop and duplicate the background. (You should now have 2 identical layers)

2. Select "Gaussian Blur" from the Effects panel and add to the top layer.

3. A window will pop us asking you to pick a radius. Select a radius of 4-10. (4.0 for low resolution photos and 10.0 for high resolution.)

4.Look like an out of focus picture? Good.

5. Make sure the top layer is selected and reduce the opacity to 50%
When I did this my jaw dropped open. This was exactly what I have been looking for! It was beautiful!!!!

Now, Experiment. Try different radius levels and different opacity levels to obtain precisely the look you desire.

On the Photo below I added one more finishing touch. I took the paintbrush, selected "dissolve", the color white, and a lower opacity. I then painted around the border of the image to lighten the shadows and bring the focus back to Calvin's face.

Now Compare:

Improvement?


I have used black and white photos for examples but of course, you can also do this on color photos, here are some more examples:











Soft Focus does not "fit" all photos but it is another tool in your toolbox for the ones that do.