Blur/Lens effect in Photoshop

Tutorial on how to create a nice abstract/blur inspired effect in Photoshop.

You’ve might seen this sort of effect elsewhere before. I really like the effect, but don’t like the typical lens-flare effect already built into Photoshop’s filters. So I decided I wanted to create a little something of my own, it’s not hard and it takes little time to pump out a nice result. The final image can be used as anything, whether it’s a background-fill for some of your other artwork, a background/theme for your webpage, a wallpaper for your phone/computer, or anything else you might need this type of effect for.

Part 1

1. I started out with a 700×900 pixels canvas, filled the background layer with the color black #000000.
2. Create a new layer (ctrl+alt+n (name it if you want to, for example to color you pick)) and choose the Soft-Round Brush on 0% hardness and brush-size around 400-450 pixels with the color pink/purple #ea00ff. (Or your own choice if you want something else)
3. Block in some round shapes with opacity around 80%, if you have a tablet you can set the pen-pressure to control opacity.
4. I used a filter to get the blurred effect. Choose the layer you’re working with, go to Filter -> Gaussian Blur, I used a radius of 100 pixels, but you should experiment with other sizes to get the best result for yourself.
5. This will be the color furthest behind in your final image, so make sure you plan ahead before you paint them in. You can swap layers around as well, so you can just go nuts and see if it all adds up in the end, as well.

You should now have something similar to this, in terms of how the brush-strokes and opacity looks

Part 2

1. Create a new layer (ctrl+alt+n (name it if you wish, for example the color you’ll use).
2. Block in more shapes in different sizes, still using the Soft-Round Brush on 0% hardness. I choose the color light-blue #2c94d4, I varied between a brush-size of 200 pixels and 500 pixels.
3. I used a filter to get the blurred effect. Choose the layer you’re working with, go to Filter -> Gaussian Blur, I used a radius of 100 pixels, but you should experiment with other sizes to get the best result for yourself.
4. This will be the color in front of the other one as it’s on a layer overlapping the first layer, so you might want to look into what sort of colors that compliments each other.

You should now have something similar to this

Part 3

1. Create a new layer (ctrl+alt+n (I named it blur)) and pick Overlay for the layer-setting.
2. Still using a Soft-Round Brush on 0% hardness, choose the color white #ffffff and shrink the brush-size down to around 150-200 pixels.
3. Start blocking in small round shapes to bring out some “flare” in the middle of the color-mess you’ve got going on.
4. I also used the Gaussian Blur filter on this layer to get a washed out effect, it feels softer and thus better in my opinion.

Your image is now done, and you should have something similar to this

Full resolution of the image can be viewed on my Flickr stream, here’s a link.