Heres a new tut fresh from the oven:

For all of you who arent so experienced in the blurring category, Im here to teach you some skills in that area. First we'll learn about the blur tool. The blur tool is mainly used for precise blurring in areas that need it. A great way to use the blur tool would be to clear up jagginess. Well start off with this screenshot:

As you can see, this screenshot is critical in jagginess, and with the the blur tool we can lear most of that up.The hands and guns, hat, and lower legs are the spots we need to clear up most. Now just select the Blur Tool, its the tear dop shaped icon in the tools palette (If you dont see it look for a pointing hand or a triangle and right click them). Select a brush size (under "image" at the top).The smaller the brush, the more precise your brush stroke will be and the less the area around it will be effected. Then brush over the jaggie area. You may need to drag over a couple times to get the effect you want.

There, you have a pretty good looking screenshot to show off. Now on the next kinds of blending which I like to call Filter Blurs. Ok, well be using the same picture as before to play with it.

First is the Average Blur (Filter>Blur). Ive never found this very useful as it basically takes the most abundant color in the picture and covers the whole canvas with it.

I guess this would only be used when you want that one color to be used as your bg without having to go to the Eyedropper tool, look at your colors, copy the code, select the whole picture, and then go to fill and paste the code in. So were just going to move on as that probably wont be used in your art very much.

Filter Blur number 2 is basically just a small blur which blends the pixels together just a little.

This could maybe be used as a Blur Tool substitute.

Number 3 is Blur More which will make any blurring you added before more intense.

Number 4, my favorite, is Gaussian Blur. This type of blur can be used to precisely control how much you blur your image and can enhance your images in a number of ways.

One way to enhance it would be to blur it till most of the features on the picture are way out of focus, then go to Edit>Fade Gaussian Blur, and drag it down to about 70% for that nice, hazy, angelic effect.

Now for the Lens Blur. This is a strange type of blur which will add "shape" to your blurs and will make your blurring look more precise, as the shape of the blur plays off on the shape of your picture (some blurs wont look as good on other pictures).
You can also choose to add noise in this blur.

Blur 6 is Motion Blur, another favorite. With this blur your are able to add a blur, which make the picture look as if it was take while the subject was speeding around. Your are able to control the angle, or direction, of the blur, and also the intensity of the blur.

If used correctly, you can turn any picture into a soft abstract for signatures and other art.

The 7th Blur in our tutorial, is the Radial Blur, which affects the radius, or the area surrounding the center. There are two types, the zoom (which will give the effect that you zoomed in very quicly while you took the picture)

and the spin (which stretches the picture in a circular form)

You can control the type, quality, and intensity.

The 8th and final Blur, is the Smart Blur. The Smart Blur is a very strange type of blur that actually looks better on the lowest quality, and gives off a strange wax crayon/ waterpainted/ cutout effect.
I hope you liked this tutorial and I hope you learned more from it.

Submitted to Good-Tutorials*