BlendModes & Blur

[SWF(width = 750, height = 750)]
var canvas:BitmapData = new BitmapData(750,1000,false, 0x000000);
addChild(new Bitmap(canvas));

var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(new URLRequest("https://actionsnippet.com/imgs/paint.jpg"));
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoaded);
var bit:BitmapData
var blurred:BitmapData;
function onLoaded(evt:Event):void{
	bit = Bitmap(evt.target.content).bitmapData;
	blurred = bit.clone();
	blurred.applyFilter(blurred, blurred.rect, new Point(0,0), new BlurFilter(4, 4, 6));
	var blends:Array = [BlendMode.NORMAL,BlendMode.ADD, BlendMode.DARKEN,BlendMode.HARDLIGHT,BlendMode.LIGHTEN, BlendMode.MULTIPLY, BlendMode.OVERLAY,BlendMode.SCREEN, BlendMode.DIFFERENCE];
	var m:Matrix = new Matrix();
	for (var i:int = 0; i<blends.length; i++){
		m.tx = i % 3 * 250;
		m.ty = int(i / 3) * 250;
		canvas.draw(bit, m);
		if (i > 0){
	    canvas.draw(blurred, m, null, blends[i]);
		}
	}
}

When I used to use photoshop for more than just the most basic of things, I would use a simple technique that employed layer modes (blend modes in flash) and blur. Sometimes, if I had a low quality image that I wanted to make look a little better, or just wanted to give an image a subtle effect, I would duplicate the layer the image was on, blur it and then go through all the layer modes on that duplicate layer until I found something I liked.

This snippet does the same thing with a few select blend modes:

This isn’t the greatest image to illustrate the effect, but I didn’t feel like digging something better up. Two notable swatches are the upper right (darken) and the lower middle (screen).