Learn how to add a beautiful dreamy photo effect to your photos with Photoshop. This effect creates a soft glow and strong background blur.
Open any photo that you want to edit into Photoshop. This is the image that I will be starting with.
Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. Then, change the blend mode of the new layer that you just created to Soft Light. You should now have a nice higher contrast photo.
Now with the same layer selected, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Use this Photoshop filter to soften the contrast effect. The higher setting you use, the softer the final effect will be. But don’t use a setting too high or else the photo effect will not be very visible.
This is what your image should look like so far. The image has more contrast with a slight soft diffused glow effect added.
Select the bottom layer and press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer.
Click on the new layer, which should be the middle layer, and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Pick a setting that you like. This will be the blur for the background so don’t worry about what the foreground looks like… focus on the background.
Now go to Layer > New Layer Mask > Reveal All. This will add a layer mask so that we can erase the foreground so that only the background is blurry.
Select the Eraser tool from the toolbar. Then, click on the layer mask to make sure that you’re editing on the layer mask. Erase the foreground so that the blur is removed from the foreground. And there you have it, below is an example of the final results.
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