# Blur FX

Gilles
Caulier

    caulier dot gilles at free.fr

Gerhard
Kulzer

    gerhard at kulzer.net

The digiKam image plugin Blur FX is a series of blurring effects for digital still images.

KDE
Digikam

# Introduction

With this plugin, you can transform an ordinary photograph into a work of art suitable for framing using blurring operations. It use algorithms copyrighted by Pieter Voloshyn.

## Using the plugin

These are the blurring effects available:

Type | Preview
--- | ---
Zoom Blur: blurs the image along radial lines starting from a specified center point. This simulates the blur of a zooming camera, thereby giving the photograph a dynamic expression as often seen in sport photography. |
Radial Blur: blurs the image by roating the pixels around the specified center point. This simulates the blur of a rotating camera. |
Far Blur: blurs the image to simulates the effect of an unfocused camera lens. The subject seems to recede into the background. |
Motion Blur: blurs the image by swishing the pixels horizontally. This simulates the blur of a linearly moving camera, i.e. like a shot taken from a car or train. |
Focus Blur: blurs the image corners to reproduce the astigmatism distortion of a lens. |
Softener Blur: blurs the image softly in the darker tones and strongly in the high lights. This gives photographes a dreamy and glossy soft focus effect (Hamilton effect). It's ideal for creating romantic portraits, glamour photography, or addding a warm and subtle glow. |
Shake Blur: blurs the image by randomly moving the pixels simulating the blur of an arbitrarily moving camera. |
Smart Blur: finds the edges of color in photograph and blurs them without muddying the rest of the image. |
Frost Glass: blurs the image by simulating randomly dispersing light filtering through hoarse frosted glass. |
Mosaic: blurs the image by dividing the photograph into rectangular cells and then recreates it by filling those cells with average pixel value. |

Some effects can take long time to run and cause high CPU load. You can always abort an effect by pressing the Abort button during preview rendering.

## The plugin in action

An example of the Blur FX dialog in action is shown below.

### The Blur FX Dialog Tool Preview