This simple technique works especially well on portraits for a glamour effect, but don't hesitate to try it on other types of images. The effect produces a warm glow, softening details and diminishing noise and artifacts similar to a soft focus or diffusion lens filter. These instructions will work in any recent version of Paint Shop Pro or other photo editors with layers and blend modes.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Open the photo.
- Duplicate the background layer by dragging it onto the new layer icon on the layer palette.
- Go to Effects > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
- Set the radius to 4-10 pixels (use a high amount for hi-res images, low amount for low-res) and click OK.
- Set the layer blend mode to soft light on the blurred layer.
- Optional: reduce the opacity of the blurred soft light layer to slightly reduce this effect.
Tips:
- Experiment with other blend modes such as screen, hard light, overlay or others.
- Screen will lighten the photo, so try it on photos that are too dark. Hard light and overlay will darken the picture, so try it on photos that are too light.
- The darken blend mode sometimes produces a watercolor-like effect.
- If you don't like the effect in certain areas of the image you can erase portions of the top layer with a soft brush.
