Continuing the short primer on the Retouching Tools. The Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge Tools
These tools are all fairly straightforward to use and have equivalents on the Filter menu, but using them from the toolbar allows you to apply retouching to selected areas of an image, rather than globally:
Download this image to practice on, either by using this link, or by clicking on the thumbnail image right.
The Blur Tool is relatively simple to use. Just select the tool and adjust the settings in the Options bar.
Decide on the size of brush you want to use. It's probably a good idea to increase the Hardness as well (to around 50%).
Just click and drag over the area you want to blur. On our sample image, try blurring the patterned frill to her top (pictured).
Again, as simple to use a the Blur tool. With out sample image, choose the tool, brush size and amount (at least 50%). Then brush over what you want to sharpen.
TIP: with our image the eyes are a good area to sharpen individually. It's a technique used by professional photographer to enhance portraits. The eyes ae the key part of a portrait and sharpening really makes the viewer think the subject is looking directly at them.
Also easy to use and a useful alternative to maybe using the Clone tool. It is best used in small areas to remove blemishes buy 'moving' good pixels over a poor area.
On our sample picture, use is (with a fairly small brush size) to 'remove' the double creae next to the model's armpit (pictured).
When you have applied all these retouching finishes to the sample image, save it with a new name and make an evidence print.
Don't forget to save versions of the retouched image with new file name(s) and then create your evidence sheet with different versions of the image and the original.