Adding Soft Focus Didn’t think to create a soft focus capture when you took the photo? Don’t worry, no problem. It’s pretty easy to create soft focus effects after the fact in the Photoshop darkroom, including selective soft focus. Of course, you can do just about anything in Photoshop—and there are usually many ways to do those many things. But you need to know where you are headed. That’s why I’ve started this section with some examples of soft focus effects created in the camera—these provide an idea for what kind of effects you can create in postprocessing that will have visual credibility. Probably the easiest way to add a soft focus effect to a photo is to use the Gaussian Blur filter. For example, I took a number of fairly standard photos of a model holding her hands above her head, and wanted to add some interest to the portrait.
▲ The head shot of this model with her arms above her head needs a way to draw viewer interest into the photo and focus attention on her face.
▶ Step 1: Choose Layer ► Duplicate Layer to create a copy of the Background layer. Name this new layer “Blur.” I recommend always adding blur on a duplicate layer in Photoshop. That way, you can always go back to the original Background layer if you don’t like the effect or want to start over.
▶ Step 2: Choose Filter ► Blur ► Gaussian Blur. The Gaussian Blur dialog opens.
◀ This intentionally soft focus effect of sunlight in a forest glade was created in-camera using a plastic lens. Lensbaby Composer, Plastic Optic, 1/800 of a second using f/4 aperture ring at ISO 400, hand held
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