Putting the Blur Gallery to Practical Use

The filters in the blur gallery provide a different kind of blur from the gaussian blur filter, but like the gaussian blur filter they provide a live preview of the composite image and not just the layer being blurred.

Photoshop has the lens blur filter which provides a similar type of blur to that found in the blur gallery, but with the twin disadvantages of no live composite preview and relative slowness of application.

Using the blur gallery allows us, therefore, the prospect of creating a somewhat different kind of soft focus effect from that which can be created with gaussian blur, whilst permitting the flexibility and convenience of a live preview.

In this video we take a look at how to use the iris blur filter to create a selective blur for a cool soft focus effect – preserving sharpness where it works in our favour, whilst allowing us to preview the impact of the blur on the rest of the image.

The video also demonstrates the use of the apply image command to extract a black and white image.