06-10-09 – Tilt-Shift Faked Miniature Scenes

I’ve had decent results in Gimp using this process (in case it helps other people).

The assumption is that the original photo is landscape mode, meaning the width is bigger than the height, and the band in focus will be horizontal. The same sort of thing should work with portrait mode photos or diagonal focus areas. But the specific numbers to use and the way you select the blur areas would have to change.

1. Use the rectangular selection tool to select the band I want to stay in focus. Make sure to expand the rectangle to cover the entire width of the image to avoid blurry edges.

2. Then “Select -> Invert”

3. Then “Select -> Feather” and pick a value that’s about 10% of the width of the photo

4. Pick “Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur”, hit the icon that forces the horizontal and vertical blur amounts to be locked. Adjust the values so that the horizontal is bigger than the vertical. I’ve been using ~20-25 for vertical and ~25-30 for horizontal for a 1600×1100 photo. Adjust up for bigger images. Hit “OK” to blur.

5. Then repeat step #1 expanding the selection above and beyond the original area about 10% of the width of the image. Meaning, select the original “in focus area” and some of the area you just blurred.

6. Repeat step #2

7. Repeat step #3

8. “Filter -> Re-Show ‘Gaussian Blur'”, increase the amount of blur in both directions about 25% and hit “OK”.

Repeat #5-9 until you hit the top and bottom edges of the image. Each time you’ll pick a smaller area to blur, and blur it more.

Essentially it’s a way to blur the image more and more the farther away from the band that you want to stay in focus. The feathering makes the transitions smooth enough to appear continuous. Here’s an example of a Florence cityscape using that process. I did it without paying much attention to what I selected, but I think it gives a sense of what the results will look like.

I think it does look a little bit better, but it offends my desire for “natural” images.

it does look better and while i agree with the desire for natural images ……. well what are they? i’ve done both film processing and printing and post processing in digital and as you well know there is no real natural image. not if one defines natural as what the eye sees.

this manipulated shot looks most like a train set instead of a train station. and naturally that’s what you wanted, right? 🙂

How creative can we get with local adjustments? Is “no spot adjustments” in full force, but you can do something like a gradient-mask blur or, in keeping with how a true T/S lens actually changes the focal plane, you you selectively mask/adjust the image to give the same effect (e.g. a really tall building will have the top blurred with global processing, but a T/S lens would keep it mostly in focus).

I will say that I’d be in favor of a week where any of the various Holga, Polaroid, Tilt-shift, Photoshop Filters, HDR, any kind of manipulation short of adding visual elements that weren’t there in the original scene would be allowed. A kind of software free for all.

I like that idea; submit it on the themes board?

Me too. I’ll just put the photo in question on the back burner in hopes I can use it for Soosh’s next suggestion of a software free for all!

Tilt shift with tiltshiftmaker:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tenesmusphyre/3609055879/

With selective masking in Gimp:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tenesmusphyre/3609055871/

The Gimp version needs some fine-tuning, but compare the two tall buildings in the middle of the image.