6 Creative Reasons for Applying Blur to Photos

Blurring, at it’s most fundamental level is the softening of an image. It is standard procedure to use a very slight blur on photos straight off your digital camera as often they are overly sharp. Sharpness, of course, isn’t a bad thing but it is more beneficially applied at the end of your retouching sessions than at the beginning.

There are many other (more creative) uses for blur though. Here are some examples.

To Imply Depth

Depth of field looks best when done in the camera, but when compositing photographs, you can imply distance and depth by blurring further away objects.

To Make Type More Readable

Setting type over a busy image can make the type hard to read. Blurring the image behind the type can make it more readable and make for a nice effect. Look at this example from PSDTuts.

To Imply Speed

Even if the object in a photo is in perfect focus, applying a direction (or “motion”) blur can imply speed.

For An Appealing Background Image

Photoshop offers some interesting blur effects with their “Shape Blur” filter. Look how the martini splashes turn into squares here, which could make for a very nice background image.

For A Surreal Feeling

Selective blurring like the “Surface Blur” filter in Photoshop can apply really nice effects to some photos. See below how this effect makes the football players seems surreal with some areas blurry and some sharply in focus.

For An Illustrative or Cartoony Feel

Another selective blurring filter in Photoshop is the Smart Blur filter. This is good for removing fine detail in areas of similar color while keeping edges sharp. This can make for a very nice illustrative effect on photos or even cartoon-like in it’s extreme.

What other creative ways have you used blur?