How to manually blur more layers at once in Photoshop

Graphic Design
#1

Hi, I am working on a map exported from GIS software. It is on a white background and has very sharp edges. When I try to automatically blur the edge it is not working well because it is curved a lot. I am doing it with ‘refine edge’ tool (there might be a better one?).

Best for me is to manually blur the edge on the whole image. It will take time but I am willing to do it. Problem is that I have more similar maps. All of them are the same spatially, just with different colors.

It will be great to be able to blur the edges on all of them together. Or maybe to make some kind of manually blurred mask which I would later apply on the other maps.

Is there such an option?
Thanks a lot.
group_bluring

#2

Are the files exactly the same?
You could try recording an action. I’m not sure it will work, but worth a try.

#3

Thanks for an idea. They are exactly the same. However Blur Tool is not the one which can be recorded :frowning:

#4

Would this approach work?

  1. Use magic wand to select the white area.

  2. Go to Select > Modify > Expand > enter appropriate number of pixels based on resolution of original art.

  3. These two actions will effectively select the outer 5 pixels (or whatever) of the colored areas.

  4. Apply Gaussian blur to soften the edges.

You could convert the layer into a smart object before hand in case you want to edit the amount of blur.

1 Like
#5

Hi Steve, I’ve been playing with Gaussian blur already but probably not the right way. Your method is giving the best results so far. If I expand the selection only by 1 pixel and apply Gaussian blur by 1 pixel too. If there is not an option how to blur the map by hand for more pictures together then this probably gonna be the way to go. Thank you!

1 Like
#6

You’re welcome.

#7

If blur is a layer style, Photoshop allows styles to be copied and pasted into multi layers or just one.
worth a try!

#8