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        I want to thank God, the reason for this site's name, for the inspiration for
    every artistic expression of which I am capable, and for making me the way I
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   - Chloe
 

 

Tutorial | Silk Blur

Use this tutorial to get from This to This! If you have any questions after the tutorial, feel free to contact me!

Step 1


First, copy the picture and paste it in a second layer on top of itself. You'll need to leave the original picture for later. Now, set the picture you just pasted to Auto Levels. (Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels). Then take the Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and set to Radius to 2.0

IMAGE

Step 2


Now copy the layer you just made, and paste it on top. Go to the layer's properties, and change it to Multiply.

IMAGE

Step 3


Now, copy the bottom layer (the original picture) and paste it on top. Gassian Blur it (same Radius as before). Now go to fade the blur (Edit > Fade Gassian Blur...) and set the Mode to Screen.

IMAGE

Step 4


Take your sharpen tool, with the size set to like 13 or something similar. (Mode:Normal, Strength:50%) Sharpen the eyes, lips, tears (if applicable), anything you want excentuated. Now, turn the whole Layer to Screen.

IMAGE

Step 5


Now copy the layer you just turned to Screen, and paste it. Gaussian Blur it. Take your Eraser Tool, with the size set to 150 or so with blurred edges. (Mode:Brush, Opacity:70%, Flow:100%) Erase the areas you want to be in focus (IE: Frodo's and Sam's faces, their hair, and their shoulders, except for the outer edes). This is roughly what you should have:

IMAGE

Step 6


Now, you can stop there if you want. The blurring part is over. Still, I find with this kind of a Blur, some coloring is really nice. Here's how I usually do it: Take two colors; one fairly bright, the other the same color, but a duller tone. I chose #166492 and #537985. Go to your Gradient Tool and select your colors (bright first, dull second). Now draw your diagnal line from the top left corner to the bottom right corner on your Blur, on a new layer.

IMAGE

Step 7


Now turn the Gradient Layer to Screen. Copy the Gradient Layer, and paste it, turn that one to Soft Light. It'll probably look to vibrant, so go to your Hue/Saturation selector (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation -or- Ctrl + U) and turn down the Saturation till it looks better to you (I turned it down 65). Here's what you should now have:

IMAGE

Conclusion


I hope this tutorial has helped! Keep in mind, when adding text to a Blur like this, it's best to try and make it look as soft as the image. One way to do this is to use faded colors. Another is to put a white or light-colored Outer Glow on the text. See the final result at the end of this tutorial for ideas. :)

Final Graphic