Fun with Photoshop - Soft Focus by Tommy Gui Photographers have been able to add some dreamy, haze and fog effects to their photographs by using filters (Common type will be the Cokin filters). These filters creates a romantic portrait or landscape, with softer edges leading to a dreamy atmosphere. However, you can achive similar effects by not spending addtional on the accessories. This is just a simple tutorial on Soft-Focus effects in Photoshop by using layers, adding Gaussian Blur and adjusting the blend mode and the layer's opacity. (Can't afford the soft-focus lens. ) 1. Start Photoshop 2. Load any image. For this example, I'll use this mannequin. 3. Apply USM if needed. Images appears to be slight underexposed, hence I'll adjust the curves. 4. Click on the "Create New fill or Adjustment Layer" button at the bottom of the Layers Panel 5. From the pop up menu, select Curves. 6. In the curves dialog box, adjust the curves accordingly. Pull the centre point up to increase brightness. Drag the bottom left point of the curve towards left to adjust contrast. 7. Press Ctrl-E to merge the layers. Now to apply the soft focus effect. 8. Right click on the background layer in Layer Panel, and select Duplicate layer. 9. Give any name for your new layer, or just click OK. 10. Click on the new layer, for this case, the "Background Copy" layer. 11. From the Filter menu, select Blur, follow by Gaussian Blur. 12. From the pop up Gaussian Blur dialog box, select a radius. For eg, 10.0pixels. 13. Click OK to close the dialog box. 14. Click on the Blending list box, and select a blending mode of your choice. I'll choose Darken for the blend mode, which will give a painted look, by reducing the number of colours and soften them 15. Adjust the Opacity of the layer to get the picture of your choice. (A good range will be 60-75). 16. Press Ctrl-E to merge the image. Darken 17. DONE! You might need to adjust the curves again to get the appropriate exposure of your choice. Different blending mode will give you a different feel. Some other effects are as follows. Original Image Normal Lighten Multiply Overlay Happy Photoshoping. Cheers!