Fading a Gaussian Blur

[chris43 webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Hi everyone, I am trying to take a picture and select a part of it and blur from one edge of the selection and fading the blur to the other edge of the selection. You often see this effect is closeup photographs where say the person is the main focus of the photo and is infocus and the closer items...say a dinner plate or something like that is blurring. Can this be done with fireworks.

Thanks in advance for any help out there

[Lanny Chambers]

In article <bj9s6o$ciu$1@forums.macromedia.com>,
"chris43" [email]webforumsuser@macromedia.com[/email] wrote:

> Hi everyone, I am trying to take a picture and select a part of it and blur
> from one edge of the selection and fading the blur to the other edge of the
> selection. You often see this effect is closeup photographs where say the
> person is the main focus of the photo and is infocus and the closer
> items...say a dinner plate or something like that is blurring. Can this be
> done with fireworks.

Sure, but you have to stop thinking like Photoshop:

1. Clone the bitmap, so you have two copies.

2. Select the lower copy and blur it (as a live effect).

3. Draw a vector rectangle (or oval) on top of the upper copy, give it a
feathered fill, and group it and the upper bitmap as a mask.

4. Adjust the size and feather radius of the mask to suit.

You should end up with a vignetted sharp image over a blurred one. It's
a pretty fair equivalent of the effect you want, with the advantage that
you can tweak any part of it without starting over or altering any
bitmap pixels.

--
Lanny Chambers, St. Louis, USA
[url]http://www.hummingbirds.net/[/url]