Free Adobe Photoshop Website Designing Video Tutorial - Smudge Tool, Blur Tool and Sharpen Tool

In this Free Photoshop Website Designing Video Tutorial, we will show you how to use Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool and Smudge Tool. Blur and Sharpen Tools are also called as focus tools. These tools are used for retouching the images. In website designing, you can use these tools to edit your website images. We suggest that you view our " Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool and Smudge Tool Video Tutorial " to understand this visually and more easily.

Press R on your keyboard to select “Blur Tool” and Shift + R to switch between blur, sharpen and smudge tool.

Functions of Photoshop Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool and Smudge Tool:

1. Blur Tool: Blur Tool is used to soften hard edges or smooth uneven areas of an image. If you keep the mouse held down it will keep blurring your area.
2. Sharpen Tool: Sharpen Tool focuses on soft edges. This will increase the clarity of the pixels.
3. Smudge Tool: Smudge Tool slides the colors of an image around and blend them together. It is used for retouching purposes.

Note: These tools cannot be used on Indexed color or 1 bit Bitmap mode images.

Steps for using Blur Tool and Sharpen Tool:

1. Select File > Open.
2. Select Blur Tool or Sharpen Tool from the toolbar.
3. Choose size and type of the brush from the brushes menu in the “Tool Options Bar”. You can also set strength and mode from here. Select “Use All Layers” if you want to blur or sharpen the data from all visible layers.
4. Click and drag your mouse over the area of an image, which you want to blur or sharpen. The more you click, more it will get blurred or sharpen.

Steps for using Smudge Tool:

1. Select File > Open.
2. Select Smudge Tool from the toolbar or press R and then press Shift + R. Press shift + R again and again until smudge tool gets selected.
3. Choose brush size and type from the brushes menu given in the tool options bar. Set strength and mode from here according to your requirement. Select “Use All Layers” if you want to use data from all the layers.
4. Select “Finger Painting” from the tool options bar to smudge using the foreground color at the beginning of each stroke. If this is deselected, the smudge tool uses the color under the pointer at the beginning of each stroke.
5. Click and drag on the image.

Blur, Sharpen and Smudge Tool options given in the Tool Options Bar:

When you select any of the focus tools (Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool, Smudge Tool) related tool options appear in the Tool Options bar.These options are described below:

1. Brush: You can define brush size and brush type from the brushes pop-up palette. You can see some additional brush options by clicking on the arrow on the upper right corner of the brush palette.
   
   
2. Mode: There are many options of mode (i.e. normal, multiply, screen etc.). Mode controls how image pixels are affected.
   
   
3. Strength: The speed of effect is determined by this setting. If you increase the strength value then this will increase the effect and vice versa.
   
   
4. Finger Painting: This option will get appear when you select smudge tool. This will smudge the area using the foreground color at the beginning of each stroke. If this option is deselected, then smudge tool uses the color under the pointer at the beginning of each stroke.