Filter basics

Some filters are grayed out or unavailable? See the solution here.    

You can use filters to clean up or retouch your photos, apply special art effects that give your image the appearance of a sketch or impressionistic painting, or create unique transformations using distortions and lighting effects. The filters provided by Adobe appear in the Filter menu. Some filters provided by third-party developers are available as plug-ins. Once installed, these plug-in filters appear at the bottom of the Filter menu.

Smart Filters, applied to Smart Objects, let you use filters non-destructively. Smart Filters are stored as layer effects in the Layers panel and can be readjusted at any time, working from the original image data contained in the Smart Object. For more information on Smart Filter Effects and nondestructive editing, see Nondestructive editing.

To use a filter, choose the appropriate submenu command from the Filter menu. These guidelines can help you in choosing filters:

• Filters are applied to the active, visible layer or a selection.

• For 8‑bits per-channel images, most filters can be applied cumulatively through the Filter Gallery. All filters can be applied individually.

• Filters cannot be applied to Bitmap-mode or indexed-color images.

• Some filters work only on RGB images.

• All filters can be applied to 8‑bit images.

• The following filters can be applied to 16‑bit images: Liquify, Vanishing Point, Average Blur, Blur, Blur More, Box Blur, Gaussian Blur, Lens Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Surface Blur, Shape Blur, Lens Correction, Add Noise, Despeckle, Dust & Scratches, Median, Reduce Noise, Fibers, Clouds, Difference Clouds, Lens Flare, Sharpen, Sharpen Edges, Sharpen More, Smart Sharpen, Unsharp Mask, Emboss, Find Edges, Solarize, De-Interlace, NTSC Colors, Custom, High Pass, Maximum, Minimum, and Offset.

• The following filters can be applied to 32‑bit images: Average Blur, Box Blur, Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Surface Blur, Add Noise, Clouds, Lens Flare, Smart Sharpen, Unsharp Mask, De-Interlace, NTSC Colors, Emboss, High Pass, Maximum, Minimum, and Offset.

• Some filters are processed entirely in RAM. If you don’t have enough available RAM to process a filter effect, you may get an error message.

Apply a filter from the Filtermenu

You can apply a filter to the active layer, or to a Smart Object. Filters applied to a Smart Object are nondestructive and can be readjusted at any time.

Filter Gallery overview

The Filter Gallery provides a preview of many of the special effects filters. You can apply multiple filters, turn on or off the effect of a filter, reset options for a filter, and change the order in which filters are applied. When you are satisfied with the preview, you can then apply it to your image. Not all filters in the Filter menu are available in the Filter Gallery.

Display the Filter Gallery

Zoom in or out of the preview

View another area of the preview

Hide filter thumbnails

Apply filters from the Filter Gallery

Filter effects are applied in the order you select them. You can rearrange filters after you apply them by dragging a filter name to another position in the list of applied filters. Rearranging filter effects can dramatically change the way your image looks. Click the eye icon  next to a filter to hide the effect in the preview image. You can also delete applied filters by selecting the filter and clicking the Delete Layer icon .

Blend and fade filter effects

The Fade command changes the opacity and blending mode of any filter, painting tool, erasing tool, or color adjustment. The Fade command blending modes are a subset of those in the painting and editing tools options (excluding the Behind and Clear modes). Applying the Fade command is similar to applying the filter effect on a separate layer and then using the layer opacity and blending mode controls.

Tips for creating special effects

You can use various techniques to treat the edges of an effect applied to only part of an image. To leave a distinct edge, simply apply the filter. For a soft edge, feather the edge, and then apply the filter. For a transparent effect, apply the filter, and then use the Fade command to adjust the selection’s blending mode and opacity.

You can apply filters to individual layers or to several layers in succession to build up an effect. For a filter to affect a layer, the layer must be visible and must contain pixels—for example, a neutral fill color.

You can apply a filter to an individual channel, apply a different effect to each color channel, or apply the same filter but with different settings.

By applying effects to solid‑color or grayscale shapes, you can generate a variety of backgrounds and textures. You might then blur these textures. Although some filters have little or no visible effect when applied to solid colors (for example, Glass), others produce interesting effects.

Using masks to create selection areas gives you more control over transitions from one effect to another. For example, you can filter the selection created with a mask.

You can also use the History Brush tool to paint a filter effect onto part of the image. First, apply the filter to an entire image. Next, step back in the History panel to the image state before the filter was applied, and set the history brush source to the filtered state by clicking in the well at the left side of the history state. Then paint the image.

You can disguise faults, alter or enhance images, or create a relationship among images by applying the same effect to each. Use the Actions panel to record the steps you take to modify one image, and then apply this action to the other images.

Improve filter performance

Some filter effects can be memory-intensive, especially when applied to a high-resolution image.