How To Master Ten Significant Filters In Photoshop?

By Author: Trisha White
Total Articles: 7
Comment this article

There is a broad range of different filters in Photoshop, which can be use to create some awesome effects. In this article, the focus will be on 10 most significant Photoshop filters. We will talk about what they do, and more importantly, why you should get to know them all.
1. Gaussian Blur
Filter >Blur >Gaussian Blur
It is an amazingly simple blur filter, but also gives you a very high degree of control on how strong of a blur you wish to apply. It is a great tool to soften edges or spread colour out across the canvas.
2. Add Noise
Filter >Noise >Add Noise

If you wish to add texture and depth to an image then adding noise would be a great idea. The noise filter should be use in moderation. Adding just a small bit of noise for the added texture is enough. Too much noise might ruin the design. Yet this filter is necessary, if you want to add an extra texture to your work!
3. Clouds
Filter >Render >Clouds
This filter helps in emerging a fine smokey effect. Once you run the Clouds filter, Photoshop takes your present fore and background colours and creates a random, cloud-like ...
... effect. For e.g., set the blending mode to develop over a good red-to-black radial gradient background to get the initial stages of a nice, dark red smokey effect. With just a small piece of extra work, this could become an amazing background for a dark design.
4. Texturizer
Filter >Texture >Texturizer
The Texturizer filter comes with a few more options. Choose any texture from the four different types of textures- Brick, Burlap, Canvas and Sandstone. This filter is use to give a distinctive look to an image. The image looks more of substance or depth.
5. Lens Flare
Filter >Render >Lens Flare
Lens Flare can be a very useful filter, if executed properly. You can use some sort of blending mode to apply the lens flare to an image for a better impact on the viewers, just like in movies. Lens Flare adds drama to your image.
6. Spherize
Filter >Distort >Spherize
With Spherize filter, make an image look as if it had placed in a glass ball. Spherize is an amazing filter; it takes a flat image and changes it in a way that the details of the image itself appear to be wrapping around a sphere. This filter works best when working with textures, which you can turn into a textured glove or sphere of some sort. Therefore, this filter certainly gives a good start!
7. Polar Coordinates
Filter > Distort >Polar Coordinates

This is a cool filter, by which you can do many interesting things. When you use the Rectangular to Polar option, it compresses your image, twists it around the canvas' center point. It can be a bit tricky, and can sometimes yield some unexpected results. It is surely an awesome filter!
8. Lighting Effects
Filter > Render > Lighting Effects
Lighting Effects filter allows you to apply various types of lighting effects to the layers in your designs. It is useful when working towards some of the effects that are popular these days. There are many different options like three types of lighting, the choice of colour, intensity, and many others. The filter also comes with several presets, which you can use for creating your own custom lighting. This filter absolutely is worth using!
9. Offset
Filter >Other >Offset
The Offset filter is a useful filter for shifting the position of pixels on the canvas. Use this filter often when creating repeating patterns in Photoshop. It is a great way of creating matching, seamless edges for patterns!
10. High Pass
Filter >Other >High Pass

It is an incredibly easy way of achieving good, controllable sharpening of your images. Just duplicate the layer that you want to sharpen and run a High-Pass filter on it. This is a great technique for making fast and constructive changes to an image.
Well there you have it - 10 essential Photoshop filters, so go ahead and play around with them a bit. Experiment and find out how these different filters actually work!

PhotoshopSociety.org an expert-authored Photoshop training and download hub for designers, photographers, enthusiasts & anyone have a passion to
learn Photoshop.