Tilt-shift effect...

[JosieShoots]

Hi all, first real post on this forum, hope I'm operating within rules/guidelines Figured I may as well get my feet wet and post up a before-after picture. So, here it is:

Before:


After:


It was an easy basic tilt-shift effect done in Photoshop. The premise to the effect is basically making it look like a macro shot by having a really shallow depth of field. To do it in Photoshop, basically enter quick mask mode, use the gradient tool to select an area you want to serve as your DoF plane, and apply the Lens Blur filter.

I was lucky enough that the shot itself already seemed to lend itself to such an effect. This was taken with my D70, using my nifty-fifty...

Enjoy?

[zona5101]

totally sweet. it makes it look like something out of a modern "Land of the Giants"
I really like that effect and you picked a great photo to rework to show it off perfectly.

[hellokevin]

Thanks a lot for sharing a short simple tutorial. I have a question though, whenever I start to apply the gradient tool, it seem to randomly pick an area to blur (have that red area), like I can't control where I want it to go. I find myself pressing ctrl+z and reapplying at least 30 times until I get it right. Am I doing something wrong? or is it supposed to be like this.

[JosieShoots]

Mm, not sure what you mean by your question...the tutorial I used taught me to use the 'beam' gradient pattern (ie dark-light-dark) as opposed to the default (dark-light). The trick is to drag it out and toy around with it, specifically how far you drag it out and extend the gradient. The problem is that the red'd area is a bit deceptive in terms of representing the plane of focus sometimes.