How to soften an image in Photoshop

If you want to soften one of your images in Photoshop, and want it to have a dreamy look, you might find this tutorial useful. You can find it works very well with babies, children and brides pictures.

The first thing to do is to make a copy of the image. You need to go to the layers palette (panel) and slide the layer to the New Layer icon.

Then we go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur

And set the Radius where the image is really blurred and the details disappear.

Lower the opacity if the effect is very strong.

Now, add a layer mask to the blurred layer

Set the default colors by pressing the letter D and choose the brush from the tool box

Look for the air brush, set the opacity in 60% and the hardness of the brush in zero

The idea is to erase the layer mask using the black brush in the eyes, teeth, hair and other details that should not be blurred. You can restore the mask with the white brush and you can change the opacity as needed.

Here is the final image.