Surreal Soft Focus Effect

Learn how to give your photos an enchanted, dream-like quality with this simple technique for creating surreal, soft-focus effects.

To begin, open up the photo you want to edit and hit Ctrl+J to duplocate the layer. Name it “glow base” or similar.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Surreal Soft Focus Effect - Fig. 1

Now, with the “glow base” layer active, go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur and enter an amount of 5%.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Surreal Soft Focus Effect - Fig. 2

Set the layer mode to “Overlay.”

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Surreal Soft Focus Effect - Fig. 3

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Added Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 8:16 am under Photo Effects.