How to blur edges in Photoshop – Tutorial

Friday, June 13, 2014

As designers, we are all very visual people and love to play with Photoshop effects. Why stick to boring, regular photos when you can make a really nice photo effect such as blurring the edges of a photo? With blur edges effect you can blend borders with the background that eventually gives an awesome effect when you want to highlight certain image / objects. Follow the steps provided in this tutorial to blur edges in Photoshop.

Steps to blur edges in Photoshop

1. First of all open Adobe Photoshop. We are using Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5 but this also works on earlier or later versions.

2. Next, open the image where you want to apply the blur edges effect. To open image, click File >> Open and then select the image file and click Open. For demonstration purposes, I am using a photo of a woman with 2 children on a nice nature background.

3. Next, from the toolbox, select Rectangular Marquee Tool (Shortcut – M). In its option bar, located at the top, set Feather = 30px. Then click and drag around the image to make a selection to blur the edge. The feather will create soft edges around your selection.

4. Next, click on the Refine Edge located in the option bar. Next, in the View Mode select View=On White (W). This will show your selection in white background. This is only for viewing your selection. Then in Output section, select Output To = New Layer. This will put your selected object / image in a new layer in the layers palette (f7).