The Soft Touch ― A Photographer's Guide to Manipulating Focus

Image sharpness is one of photography’s yin/yang propositions. Soft focus can impair a photograph, and just as readily enhance itin some cases, greatly enhance it. What we perceive as blur, as soft zones in a picture, function in very much the same manner as deep shadows or overexposed highlights. By minimizing or concealing certain details in the image by selectively throwing areas out of focus at will, the photographer can direct a viewer’s attention through the image as he or she intends. Like the rest stops in a piece of music, creatively manipulated zones of softness can totally govern a photograph’s overall impact.

There are dozens of ways to selectively reduce sharpness in any part of an image, and three important reasons for a photographer to be fluent in his or her ability to create a soft-focus look: (1) to emphasize important picture details by subordinating or eliminating others; (2) to reduce or remove details of a subject that undermine a picture’s intent, and (3) to create a mood impression, an aura, that suggests something about a subject that doesn’t actually appear in the frame.

In this book, Jim Cornfield surveys in detail the art of selectively using soft focus in your photography. Readers will learn about the history of soft-focus photography, then move to technical discussions for creating the effect in-camera (taking advantage of spherical aberrations, circles of confusion, and bokehthe way a lens, due to its unique properties and specific aperture shape, renders image areas that lie outside of the focus rangeoften described as good” or bad” bokeh). Next, readers will move on to a study of post-capture image manipulations using Photoshop and third-party plugins in order to re-create traditional effects. Finally, the author includes an appendix of currently available optical and digital products intended for the creative application of soft-focus effects.

Armed with the tools needed to produce a predictable soft-focus look, readers will be able to expand their photographic repertoire for enhanced artistic expression and stand-out work that will draw clients and generate client referrals.

Jim Cornfield is a veteran commercial photographer, freelance journalist, and travel writer, based in Malibu Canyon, CA. Over a career that spans 35 years, Cornfield has been Feature Editor of Petersen’s PhotoGraphic magazine, Director of Photography for East/West Network, and was co-creator of the acclaimed book series, Masters of Contemporary Photography. His photographs appear in advertisements and corporate publications worldwide, for a clientele that includes NBC, CBS, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Hewlett-Packard, Dole, Occidental Petroleum, and a gamut of periodicals from Reader's Digest to Scientific American. As a writer, his adventure and eco-travel articles, covering destinations from Israel, India, Costa Rica, Spain and Italy to Honduras, the Cayman Islands and Portugal, are widely published in magazines, including Scientific American, Continental Airlines magazine, and NY-based Rangefinder, for which Cornfield is a columnist and regular contributor of photo-related feature stories. Cornfield is the author of three books, and an experienced film and video director, having created many television commercials for his broadcasting and advertising clients. He was raised Los Angeles, graduated from UCLA, and served as an officer in the US Air Force.