note: the instructions in this tutorial are aimed primarily at Photoshop users but can be utilized in any image editing program that supports layers and blending modes. The reason that this tutorial came about is once upon a time, I had a set of plug-ins that I’d paid for that did exactly what I’m going to cover in this tutorial. Well, I lost the disk and didn’t really feel like paying for them again, so I came up with my own way of creating a “dreamy” effect in Photoshop using just the plug-ins that come with Photoshop.

1. Start by opening your document in Photoshop. You’ll have one layer that is labeled “Background” in italics. Click and drag that layer over the Create New Layer icon, or go to Layer > Duplicate Layer… and click OK.
2. You should have a second layer called “Background copy”. Now, press Shift+Ctrl+U (Windows) to desaturate that layer.
3. Click on the Blending Mode drop-down at the top of the Layers panel, and select “Overlay.” So far so good. You’re almost done.
4. Making sure that your “Background copy” layer is selected, go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Now play around with the blur level till you have something that looks nice. I usually go for a blur value of 10.
5. Click OK, and now you’re done.

To make things easier, I’ve created a set of actions for Photoshop.

Download Zip 8Kb: Dreamy Photo actions

This software is licensed under the CC-GNU GPL.