CoffeeShop Auto Baby Blanket Blur Photoshop/PSE Action!

I have had so many requests for a baby blanket blur action (try saying that a few times quickly) over the years, and for some reason I hadn't taken the time to design it.  Well, this week I had the urge to finally start experimenting with some of my reader's baby images and I am really happy with the results!

In-camera captured fade is of course better, but please remember this is an editing blog.  In a perfect studio world we would all have beautiful depth of field and a sharply focused baby.  But in my world I would photograph babies with a smaller aperture so that the baby would be in sharp focus and not worry about the "blanket blur".  After all, I figured I could always add that in Photoshop later but I can't save an out-of-focus baby!

Today I am releasing the CoffeeShop Baby Blanket Blur action.  By the way, I was putting this together with two hyper boys running around and I had originally called it Baby Blanket Fade and for some reason ended up naming it Blur.  I am too lazy to make the necessary name changes on the "ad" and action (already uploaded) even though I preferred the original name...

This quickly adds blanket fade to your images and should be used as your final step in the editing process.  I am going to release two more versions in the next week or two that will include a full retouching set of steps and also an optional beautiful peachy tint.

CoffeeShop Auto Baby Blanket Blur Action Tutorial:

Today I am using this beautiful image from Kitty  Belle Photography.  This image is perfect "as is".   I almost hate to do anything to it, but this is an editing blog and I am a Photoshop addict.

Start the Baby Blanket Blur action.  The first  prompt allows you to drag the top and bottom bars to select the area you want in focus (the baby).

The selection should be feathered and you can select the setting (1-150).  Higher resolution images will need a higher feathering pixel.

The next prompt will allow adjustment of the blur.

The final step will allow you to add an optional solid color to the blanket fade.  You can select the color from the picker or use the eye dropper and grab a color from the blanket.

After the action finishes you will have three layers.

If you keep all the layers turned on the background will fade to the solid color you selected.

If you prefer to see more of the blanket texture, turn off the "add solid color" layer.

You can use this action on any color background.  On this sample I used a beautiful image from Lucinda Photography (Facebook).  I decided to blur to a solid color, but it would be really pretty to just blur the blanket.  I could also have increased the feather pixels so the blur would have additional depth.

I hope you enjoy playing with this action!  I would love to see your before/after images on my Facebook page.

Download the free CoffeeShop Baby Blanket Blur action.  You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.