How to fake a long exposure effect in Photoshop using Path Blur

The Path Blur has been around in Photoshop for a few years now, but it’s not a commonly used or really understood tool. Something that is pretty common, though, at least as far as photography’s concerned, are long exposures. But it’s not always possible to get a long exposure of a scene we really want to.

In this video, Julieanne Kost from Adobe’s official Photoshop Channel shows us how the Path Blur works and how we can use it to simulate a long exposure shot from a regular static still image, for those times when we’re not able to shoot it for real in-camera.

I don’t know that I’d personally want to use the Path Blur for this purpose myself. I think I’d rather just shoot it in-camera. But it’s not always possible. Perhaps we forgot our ND filters, or maybe we’re not able to shoot from a tripod on a solid platform like, say, from a moving vehicle or a boat bobbing up and down. And at those times, we just have to deal with what we can get.

But whether you use this technique to simulate long exposures or not, you’ll have a better understanding of exactly how Photoshop’s Path Blur tool works and how you might be able to use it effectively in your own imagery.

Do you use the Path Blur in your work?