Soft Focus Photography

credits: Skylum

What is Soft Focus exactly?

Soft focus is when you intentionally reduce sharpness just a little to get a gentle, glowing image. It smooths out textures (especially skin), reduces contrast, and gives your photo a kind of ethereal quality. It’s often used in:

• Portraits, dreamy landscapes, artistic/fine art work, vintage-style shots or even editorial fashion photography

How to Get the Soft Focus Look (In-Camera)

Use a diffusion filter

This is probably the easiest way to get soft focus without messing with your lens. Some good ones are:

• Tiffen Black Pro-Mist

• Moment CineBloom

• Soft FX or diffusion filters

These reduce contrast and bloom highlights just enough to get the desired soft focus look.

Shoot wide open

Use a fast lens (like f/1.8 or f/2.0) and shoot with a shallow depth of field. That slight softness around the edges can mimic the feel of a soft focus photo.

Use manual focus slightly off

If you’re feeling bold, you can slightly back off the sharpest point when using manual focus. Just keep in mind to be subtle about it.

Soft light

Make use of natural diffused light or big softboxes. Harsh light brings out detail and contrast, which works against the soft look. Overcast days, window light through sheer curtains, or golden hour light work beautifully.

Old lenses = instant softness

Vintage lenses often have a naturally soft rendering, especially wide open. Mount an old 50mm on a mirrorless body and you'll be halfway there.

DIY Trick: Vaseline on a Clear Filter

Take a cheap, clear UV filter and lightly smear a little Vaseline around the edges. This diffuses the light coming in and gives you a soft glow, while keeping the center relatively sharp. Just be careful, don’t apply Vaseline directly to your lens, only to a separate filter. And use it sparingly, a little goes a long way. It’s cheap, it’s fun, and it gives you full creative control over how soft and dreamy your soft look gets.

Doing It in Post-Processing

You can totally fake the soft focus effect in editing, and honestly, it gives you even more control.

In Lightroom or Photoshop:

• Drop clarity and reduce contrast

• Add a slight glow (try the Orton effect or soft light overlays)

• Blur a duplicate layer just slightly, then reduce opacity or blend it with a soft light mode

• Play with the texture slider to smooth out surfaces without losing shape

• Use radial filters or masks to apply softness just to certain parts of the image

You can also add bloom effects to highlights using tools like Luminar or Photoshop’s glow filters.

Some Bonus Tips

• Soft focus works great in black & white, especially for moody portraits.

• It pairs beautifully with film simulations or vintage colour grading.

• Combine it with motion blur, shallow depth of field, or pastel colors for even more atmosphere.