Live effect on part of a photo

[jaydear]

I'm having trouble doing a small Gaussian blur on a photo in a document in P&GD10.

I just need to blur a tiny part of the picture, so I've used the mask painter to cover it, then inverted it so most of the picture is masked, except the bit I have to blur.

Then I apply the Gaussian Blur effect and the whole doggone, blinkety-blank picture is blurred. Geez I'm getting frustrated. I think I'm reading the Help properly. What the heck am I doing wrong?

[Gamerprinter]

I'd copy the image, create a rectangle (or other drawn shape) around the area you want blurred then Arrange/Combine/Intersect. You will need to export the shape to a PNG or JPG file so its an image. Then I'd apply the Gaussian blur on that shape. Now the blur is only on the area you created. As long as its placed exactly on top of the previous image (you didn't move it), you've accomplished your goal. I haven't used the mask painter as much, so there may be a solution there, that I'm not aware of, but my way would provide a solution.

[stygg2003]

One way for what you want to achieve is to do exactly what you did with the painter tool, I used the freehand one, do not invert it, then instead of using gaussian blur, click on Enhance Photo then you can use the blur tool on the tool bar. You can also click on the selected area and alter its size with the shape tool if you need to. I blurred part of eye of the cat using this method

Stygg

[stygg2003]

Forgot to mention jaydeer that with the area you have selected, you can also alter the colour using the method I posted, all the Photo enhance tools if you wish. So here's the cat with part blurred one eye and the other eye blue.

Stygg

[gwpriester]

Make a duplicate photo, mask the portion you want to blur in a circle (Combine Shapes > Intersect Shapes), apply a blur with the Photo Tool > Enhance Blur/Sharpen tool, then add feathering. The blue dotted circle represents the size of the intersected photo/circle.

[angelize]

Another way to go is to clone your photo (Ctrl+K) and apply your blurring to the whole cloned photo and put it behind the original photo. Now use the eraser tool to brush over the area you want blurred. And you can set the softness of the eraser tool to blend the edges. You can also click the wineglass icon to open the transparency tool and make sure nothing is selected. now set the transparency slider on the info bar and this will set a flat transparency to anything you draw so you can go back and use the eraser tool and this transparency will be applied to it for more subtle blending.

[jaydear]

Thanks everybody! I found stygg2003's method the most immediate, kinda like Paintshop Pro 7. The other methods are more like using Photoshop layers, which I have never really gotten into. I suppose I'll have to now to make best use of P&GD10. It is really bizarre that the Enhance Photo tools work as I was expecting, yet the Live Fx tools ignore the selection / masking. One day I'll find out why .