Gaussian Blur

This is the plain, boring, extremely useful blur. One image in, one slider, one image out. It doesn't simulate a camera lens like Lens Blur, and it doesn't respect distance like the depth-map variants - it just softens the whole image evenly. That makes it the right default when you want to soften a mask edge, knock the harsh edges off a composited layer before blending, or just take the crunchiness out of an upscaled image, without needing to think about aperture blades or depth maps.

How it works

Gaussian blur works by averaging each pixel with its neighbors, weighted so nearby pixels count more than far ones - the classic bell-curve (Gaussian) falloff. It's computationally cheap and produces a smooth, even softening with no directional bias and no special highlight shapes, which is exactly why it's the default blur in basically every image editor.

The inputs and outputs that matter

• image - the picture to blur.
• amount (1–100, default 100) - blur strength. This is the only real control on the node; higher values mean a stronger, more spread-out blur.

Output is a single IMAGE.

How to install it

ComfyUI Manager: search Virtuoso Nodes for ComfyUI, install, restart. By hand:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/chrisfreilich/virtuoso-nodes
pip install -r virtuoso-nodes/requirements.txt

Restart, find it under Virtuoso/Blur. No model weights - it's cheap, fast image math.

Common issues & troubleshooting

Result looks too aggressive at the default. amount defaults to 100, which is the maximum on this node's scale - not a moderate middle value like it might be on some other blur tools. If you want a subtle softening rather than a strong blur, drop this well below the default, not just a small nudge.

You need the blur to only apply to part of the image. This node doesn't take a mask input - it blurs the entire image uniformly. For selective blurring, either combine it with Blend Modes (blur a duplicate layer, then mask-blend it back over the sharp original) or use one of the depth-aware variants (Gaussian Blur with Depth Map) if the selection you want is distance-based.

You want the softer, more "real lens" look instead of a generic smear. That's the tradeoff Gaussian blur makes for its simplicity - for something closer to actual photographic bokeh with shaped highlights, reach for Lens Blur instead; it costs more compute but looks less like a flat smudge.