This simple "glamour" technique works especially well on portraits, 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. This technique will work in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and most 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 to the new layer icon on the layers palette.
- Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 10 pixels and click OK.
- Set the blend mode of the blurred layer to soft light.
- Optional: reduce the opacity of the blurred 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.
