Softening a photo creates a dreamy, glossy effect that mimics the effect produced by a high-quality soft-focus lens. This effect is often used for magazine covers and glamour photos. Crisp, sharp photos appear warmer when you add a soft focus.
Corel PaintShop Pro provides the following softening methods:
• You can apply a soft-focus camera lens effect to the photo or selection.
• You can apply a uniform, soft blur to the photo or selection.
To apply a soft focus to a selection or image
Edit tab
1 Choose AdjustSoftnessSoft Focus.
The Soft Focus dialog box appears.
2 In the Focus group box, type or set a value in the following controls:
• Softness — determines the strength of the adjustment. At lower percentages, the photo is softened by only a small amount. At higher percentages, the photo appears blurred.
• Edge importance — determines how much softening to apply to edge details within the photo. At lower percentages, the edges are softened. At higher percentages, the edge details are retained, so less softening is applied to them.
3 In the Halo group box, type or set a value in the following controls:
• Amount — determines the strength of the halo effect. At lower values, the halo is added only to very bright areas in the photo. At higher values, a halo effect is created around all bright areas.
• Halo size — determines the size of the halo. At lower values, the halo is small. At higher values, the halo effect is large.
• Halo visibility — determines the strength of the halo visibility. At lower values, the halo effect is subtle. At higher values, the halo effect is more obvious.
4 Click OK.
You can soften bright areas in the photo’s background by marking the Include scattered light check box.