Step 8: Apply The "Gaussian Blur" Filter

To create the soft glow effect, we need to blur the image on our "gaussian blur" layer. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur. This will bring up Photoshop's Gaussian Blur dialog box. Drag the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box towards the right to increase the amount of blurring that's being applied to the layer, or drag the slider to the left to decrease the blur amount. Keep an eye on your image in the document window as you drag the slider so you can see what's happening, and select a radius value that gives your image a nice soft glow effect. I'm going to set my radius value to 13 pixels, which works nicely for my image:

Click OK when you're done to accept the blur effect and exit out of the dialog box. Here's my image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter:

If we look in our Actions palette, we can see that a fifth step, Gaussian Blur, has been added to our "Soft Glow" action, and if we twirl open the step, we can see from the details that the radius value in the Gaussian Blur dialog box will automatically be set to 13 pixels every time we run this action:

That's great, but what if a radius value of 13 pixels doesn't work as well with the next image we use with this action? What if the next image needs an even higher radius value to achieve the desired glow effect, or a smaller radius value? Maybe, instead of using the same radius value each time the action is played, we should have Photoshop pop open the Gaussian Blur dialog box for us so we can adjust the radius value, if needed, and customize the effect for each image.

As we've already learned, we can easily enable or disable dialog boxes when an action plays by simply clicking on on the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the step. By default, the toggle icons appear empty, which means that the dialog box associated with the step will not appear when the action plays. Since I want the Gaussian Blur dialog box to appear each time I run the action, I'm going to click inside the empty toggle icon to the left of the step. When I do, a small gray dialog box icon appears, telling me that the dialog box will now pop open for me when I play the action:

Step 9: Lower The Opacity Of The Layer To 65%

To complete the action, let's lower the opacity value of the "gaussian blur" layer so the effect isn't quite as intense. To lower the opacity of the layer, go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, directly across from the Blend Mode option. By default, the opacity value is set to 100%. Click on the small arrow to the right of where it says "100%", which will bring up a small slider bar. Use the slider to drag the opacity value down to 65%:

Important: As you're dragging the slider to lower the opacity of the layer, make sure you don't release your mouse button until you've dragged the slider to the desired value. Each time you release your mouse button, Photoshop will consider it a new step in the action and you'll end up with multiple steps for lowering the opacity. For example, if you dragged the slider down to 90%, released your mouse button, then dragged the slider to 75%, released your mouse button, and then dragged the slider down to 65%, you'd end up with three steps listed in the action, one lowering the opacity to 90%, another lowering it to 75%, and finally, a third step lowering the opacity to 65%. If this happens to you, wait until you're done recording the action, then simply click on the extra steps you don't need and drag them down on to the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Actions palette to delete them.

Even More Important: Also, if you're using Photoshop CS or later, do not use the scrubby slider to lower the opacity value of the layer. This one, I can't stress enough. Do not use scrubby sliders when recording actions. If you try lowering the opacity of the layer to 65% using the scrubby slider, you'll end up with 35 individual steps in your action, each one lowering the opacity of the layer by 1%. So, no scrubby sliders when recording actions, otherwise you'll be deleting a lot of extra steps when you're done. Been there, done that.

Having said that, once you've lowered the opacity of the layer, you're done recording all the steps needed for the action! Let's look in our Actions palette, where we can see the final step, another one named Set current layer, listed, and if we twirl the step open to view the details, we can see that this final step will lower the opacity of the layer to 65%:

Here, after lowering the layer opacity, is my image with the completed "Soft Glow" effect:

Step 10: Stop Recording The Action

We're done recording our action, which means we need to tell Photoshop to stop recording what we're doing. To do that, click on the Stop icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

And with that, we're done! We've successfully recorded our very first action, and we now have an effect that we can instant apply to any other image we want! Let's quickly make sure the action works as expected. I'll open another image in Photoshop:

To run the new action on the image, I'll select the "Soft Glow" action from inside my "My Actions" set in the Actions palette, then I'll click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

As soon as I click on the Play icon, Photoshop begins running through the steps in the action, first creating a snapshot of the image in the History palette, then duplicating the Background layer, renaming the new layer "gaussian blur", and changing the blend mode of the new layer to Overlay. When it reaches the step where the Gaussian Blur filter is applied to the image, it pauses the action and pops open the Gaussian Blur dialog box for me so I can re-adjust the Radius value if needed:

Notice how the radius value in the dialog box is already set to 13 pixels, since that's the value we used when we recorded the action. I could change the value here if I wanted to, but I think 13 pixels works well for this image, so I'll simply click OK in the top right corner of the dialog box to accept the setting, exit out of the dialog box, and allow Photoshop to continue running through the steps in the action.

Photoshop continues on, lowering the opacity value of the "gaussian blur" layer to 65% for me, at which point the effect is complete, and it was completed in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to run through all those steps again on my own! Here is the image with the final "Soft Glow" effect:

Looks like our action works exactly as planned! We can now use it to quickly apply our "Soft Glow" effect on any image we want!

Since we put in the time and effort to record the action, we should probably save it so we don't lose it. We'll look at how to save and load actions next!