What, me blurry? The answer is yes, if you have an image that contains unwanted grain (the roughness or noise added by the photographic film) or, perhaps, an objectionable pattern of halftone dots used in a printed image. You might need to blur a background to make the foreground seem sharper, or blur a portion of an image to create an angelic glow. Here are your blurring options (all found in the Filter-->Blur menu):
- Average: This single-step filter calculates the average value (or color) of the image or selection and fills the area with that average value. This can be useful for smoothing the values of areas containing a lot of noise.
- Blur: Also a single-step filter, Blur provides overall blurring of an image.
- Blur More: This filter provides a significantly increased amount of blurring than the regular, old-fashioned Blur filter.
- Gaussian Blur: This filter offers a radius control to let you adjust the amount of blurring more precisely. It’s also got a really cool name.
The Gaussian Blur filter is an excellent tool because it gives you a great deal of control over the amount and type of blurring you get. That’s especially true when compared to the single-step filters Blur and Blur More, which apply a fixed amount of blur. Use these latter two filters when you simply want to de-sharpen an image a tad, and turn to Gaussian Blur when you’re looking for a specific effect.
- Lens Blur: This filter simulates the blurring that can occur when you capture an image with a camera.
- Motion Blur: This filter simulates the blur you see in objects that are moving.
- Radial Blur: This filter produces the kind of blur you might get when photographing a revolving automobile tire.
- Smart Blur: This filter lets you control how Photoshop applies the blur to edges and other details of the image.
Applying the Lens Blur filter
If you’ve ever played with the aperture settings on a camera, you’re probably well aware that you can determine how shallow or deep your depth of field is. Depth of field relates to the plane of focus, or how in focus the foreground elements are in relationship to the background elements. If you use a Lens Blur filter on an alpha channel the alpha channel acts as a depth map. This is a great for taking a fully focused image and creating a shallow depth of field where the foremost object is in focus and the background elements gets blurrier the farther they are from the focal point. You can achieve this by creating an alpha channel filled with a white to black gradient — white where you want the most focus and black where you want the least focus or most blur. Here is a brief description on setting the Lens Blur filter options:
- Source: If you have an alpha channel, select it from this pop-up menu. The Lens Blur option interprets the various grayscale values of the alpha channel and applies the blur according to the value set in the Blur Focus Distance. Choose Transparency to make an image get blurrier as it gets more transparent. Choose Layer Mask to apply the blur according the grayscale values on the layer mask. If your image contains none of these options, choose None. Photoshop applies the blur on the image.
- Blur Focal Distance: Specifies how blurry or in focus an area of the image will be. Photoshop places the grayscale values less than the value specified in front of the plane of the focus, and those greater than the value specified in back. Drag the slider to specify the value or click the crosshair cursor on the part of the image you want to be in full focus.
- Iris: The Iris settings are meant to simulate a camera lens. Specify the shape of the lens, as well as the radius (size of the iris), curvature, and rotation of that shape.
- Specular Highlights: The Lens Blur filter averages the highlights of an image, which, left uncorrected, cause some highlights to appear grayish. These controls help to retain specular highlights, or those highlights, which should appear very white. Set the Threshold value to specify which highlights should be specular, or remain white. Set a Brightness value to specify how much to re-lighten any blurred areas.
- Noise: Blurring, of course, obliterates any noise, or film grain, an image may have. This can cause the image to appear inconsistent or unrealistic in many cases. Drag the slider to add noise back into your image.
- Average: This single-step filter calculates the average value (or color) of the image or selection and fills the area with that average value. This can be useful for smoothing the values of areas containing a lot of noise.
- Blur: Also a single-step filter, Blur provides overall blurring of an image.
- Blur More: This filter provides a significantly increased amount of blurring than the regular, old-fashioned Blur filter.
- Gaussian Blur: This filter offers a radius control to let you adjust the amount of blurring more precisely. It’s also got a really cool name.
The Gaussian Blur filter is an excellent tool because it gives you a great deal of control over the amount and type of blurring you get. That’s especially true when compared to the single-step filters Blur and Blur More, which apply a fixed amount of blur. Use these latter two filters when you simply want to de-sharpen an image a tad, and turn to Gaussian Blur when you’re looking for a specific effect.
- Lens Blur: This filter simulates the blurring that can occur when you capture an image with a camera.
- Motion Blur: This filter simulates the blur you see in objects that are moving.
- Radial Blur: This filter produces the kind of blur you might get when photographing a revolving automobile tire.
- Smart Blur: This filter lets you control how Photoshop applies the blur to edges and other details of the image.
Applying the Lens Blur filter
If you’ve ever played with the aperture settings on a camera, you’re probably well aware that you can determine how shallow or deep your depth of field is. Depth of field relates to the plane of focus, or how in focus the foreground elements are in relationship to the background elements. If you use a Lens Blur filter on an alpha channel the alpha channel acts as a depth map. This is a great for taking a fully focused image and creating a shallow depth of field where the foremost object is in focus and the background elements gets blurrier the farther they are from the focal point. You can achieve this by creating an alpha channel filled with a white to black gradient — white where you want the most focus and black where you want the least focus or most blur. Here is a brief description on setting the Lens Blur filter options:
- Source: If you have an alpha channel, select it from this pop-up menu. The Lens Blur option interprets the various grayscale values of the alpha channel and applies the blur according to the value set in the Blur Focus Distance. Choose Transparency to make an image get blurrier as it gets more transparent. Choose Layer Mask to apply the blur according the grayscale values on the layer mask. If your image contains none of these options, choose None. Photoshop applies the blur on the image.
- Blur Focal Distance: Specifies how blurry or in focus an area of the image will be. Photoshop places the grayscale values less than the value specified in front of the plane of the focus, and those greater than the value specified in back. Drag the slider to specify the value or click the crosshair cursor on the part of the image you want to be in full focus.
- Iris: The Iris settings are meant to simulate a camera lens. Specify the shape of the lens, as well as the radius (size of the iris), curvature, and rotation of that shape.
- Specular Highlights: The Lens Blur filter averages the highlights of an image, which, left uncorrected, cause some highlights to appear grayish. These controls help to retain specular highlights, or those highlights, which should appear very white. Set the Threshold value to specify which highlights should be specular, or remain white. Set a Brightness value to specify how much to re-lighten any blurred areas.
- Noise: Blurring, of course, obliterates any noise, or film grain, an image may have. This can cause the image to appear inconsistent or unrealistic in many cases. Drag the slider to add noise back into your image.
Blurring What’s Sharp in Photoshop
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