Photographers: How do you generally get this soft of an image?

No expert here but I would use a wider aperture (say f2.8) to get a shallower depth of field.

To me it looks like some photo’s have used selection tool with light Gaussian blur, and other photos just by using the soft blur tool on a low setting, leaving some areas untouched.

What about color wise? How to achieve this awesome faded out effect? I feel my faded photos aren’t soft enough.

I would again select an area, then use color slider bar to lower saturation. Then use a soften tool to make sure the edges are soft. Or blur tool to soften any differences in gradation.

Come to think of it, the gradient tool might work too, on a lower layer, also by swiveling to add color and take away color in certain areas.

It looks like the highlights and saturation are pulled back, aperture set to something “lowish” (around 5 to 7).

In my experience, Photoshop can give you too much range (especially the curves) in post-processing and therefore can be destructive to photos. Surely there are people who master their editing in PS but I prefer Adobe Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture.

@silverfly I agree. I don’t do any blurring through photoshop. I like how it occurs in the lens though. What is your opinion on how to get that color texture in example #2 & #4

Tough call… In Photoshop, you could add a new layer with a color and play with layer styles – the dark image looks like it has an old / antique quality where the fill is dark and warm. You could try adding some subtle noise to simulate grain.

The fourth image is also toned back and you might also try adding a fill and softening the image with a slight blur and some layer styles.. It’s anyones guess as to how these were actually done. Check out http://visualsupply.co for similar effects. There’s also an iPhone app. If nothing else, the iPhone app will show you how to achieve various effects and the terminology for each.