We all enjoy taking photos of our kids and family. Sometimes it’s fun to use Photoshop to add the ’soft glow’ look to certain photos, similar to what the professional photographers do to portraits. Here is one way to achieve that look in a few simple steps.

I personally prefer photos with as little touchup as possible applied. So, when I make changes like the glow effect, my final result will always be rather subtle. The beauty of this technique, however, is that it can be adjusted at the various stages to suit the taste of the artist. So use my settings as a guideline only, and experiment to see if you can come up with something that suits your personal style!

Here is my original photo. I don’t think it needs a thing done to it, but here goes anyway!

Here is the final photo.

I duplicated and then hid my original background layer. Then, working on the copy of the background layer, I used the Levels command to slightly darken the photo by dragging the far left slider tab just slightly to the right. (Note that this change is permanent to this layer. Had I wanted to be able to change the Levels later, I would have made a separate Levels layer by clicking on the half-moon icon at the bottom of the layers palette, then choosing “Levels.”)

I then duplicated the darkened background layer copy and renamed the new layer “Blur Layer.” I went to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and entered a Radius of 5 and clicked OK. I chose my Eraser Tool from the Toolbox and used a round brush set to 6 pixels and the Hardness set to 0%. Since I use a Wacom Tablet and Pen, I made sure the Shape Dynamics in the Brush menu was clicked off. Then I set the brush opacity to 100% (top Menu Bar) and began to carefully erase the eyes, eyelashes, teeth and lips, earring, and some wisps of hair on both girls. Once happy with that, I changed the Blend Mode (top of the Layers Palette) to Darken.

Finally, I merged all the visible layers together for the final photo.

You can try different blend modes or different effects, and you can also adjust the opacity of the blur layers as you change blend modes. You might also try increasing the amount of Gaussian Blur by increasing the radius used. You will be surprised at the multitude of looks you will see.

Two warnings! Always work on a duplicate of your image, saving the original file separately! Second, you might want to put something in the crockpot before you start! This can become addicting and you may look up only to realize that the day has passed and it’s time for dinner!