Noob question about photoshop

[jahasaja]

Hi all,

I have been googeling this for a long time but cannot figure it out: How do you create a blur effect on a picture in photoshop without adding colors? everytime i try to ad some kind of blur 100+ colors is added to my picture.

[Ai]

You don't. (technically you can if you store the original palette and then, after blurring, re-indexize it to that palette. That's quite tiresome though.)

The closest you will come to this would be by using GrafX2's 'Smooth' brush effect, or the equivalent in Pro Motion.

Alternatively, you can just draw the blurring -- it's not that hard, especially when restricted to relatively few colors.

[Arne]

You could always set up a macro to > 24bit > blur > reindex using a preciously saved .act palette table.

Or do a macro which duplicates the layer a bunch of times, sets appropriate opacity for each layer and offsets them slightly a pixel or more, then flattens and reapplies the .act..

But I'd rather not blur pixel art.


I prefer to blend colors by using a 1px brush on ~50% opacity and work in 24 bit mode. I just color-pick to select colors from the "palette" which is the image itself. I use Replace color to tweak the individual colors or similar colors.

[yrizoud]

> The closest you will come to this would be by using GrafX2's 'Smooth' brush effect,
There's the "brush effect" using one of Dawnbringer's scripts, but there's also a built-in Smooth drawing effect, compatible with any tool and brush size.
In either case, there will be no good quality of blurring if the image's palette doesn't already propose enough transitions  between the colors that are encountered close to each other on the image.

[jahasaja]

I prefer to blend colors by using a 1px brush on ~50% opacity and work in 24 bit mode. I just color-pick to select colors from the "palette" which is the image itself. I use Replace color to tweak the individual colors or similar colors.

This really solved my problem! Thanks Arne (again)

[Arne]

Just be sure to avoid colors getting muddy when mixing a lot by using "replace color" (to control saturation or whatever) on the ones you want to pop a little, or by mixing in some more saturated red or whatever with the 50% or 25% brush opacity maneuver. Also, after applying a stroke you can fade it and control the opacity using cmd+shft+f (useful if you wanted slightly more red or less red in a color). You can also do stuff like paint bucket a color over another color and use fade to mix them. Or you can fade after using replace color to lessen the effect.