The header images on these Sections blog post pages are all done using the Sections Pro background integration for Total CMS blog. They work just as well with normal images, and non blog CMS data from any source.

Blurred backgrounds are a great way to provide a fill behind images of different aspect ratios, as color matched headers and to create unique gradients.

Check out the demo site where we use tiny 5kb images to produce beautiful background gradients that are not possible in any other way.

You can find out more on the demo site

http://sectionspro.bigwhiteduck.com/blur/

and download the original project file here.