This technique is great for creating glamour portraits. It's also good for reducing JPEG artifacts. It mimics a soft focus or diffusion lens filter, softening the photo, reducing harsh lines and wrinkles, and intensifying the colors. Follow the steps here to create the soft focus glamour effect in PhotoImpact.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Open the photo.
- Duplicate the background by choosing Edit > Copy and then Edit > Paste > As object.
- Go to Effect > Blur & Sharpen > Gaussian Blur.
- Click Options, then set the variance to 4-10 pixels (use a high amount for hi-res images, low amount for low-res) and click OK.
- In the layer manager, set the transparency to 50% on the blurred object.
- Go to Object > Merge All.
- Go to Effect > Blur & Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.
- Click Options, and experiment within the following ranges: Sharpen Factor: 20-30, Aperture Radius: 2-10.
- Go to Format > Hue & Saturation.
- Move the saturation slider to somewhere in the 10-20 range and click OK.
