Toy Town?

[SwissJon]

This is my first effort at creating a "Toy Town" tilt shift effect. I took the photo from high on a hill with a 300mm lens on Easter day, it was slightly misty and the picture was low saturation and pretty bland. I'm fairly happy with the result. Normally this street is busy and full of cars and people, however I think the less busy feel adds to the effect.

I created the effect in PS using a mirrored grad filter with a gaussian blur on a copy of the layer. I then increased both the saturation and the contrast and then used a soft eraser to cut through to the original photo underneath for a couple of verticals that had become blurred where they shouldn't, and used the blur tool on the base of the towerblock that had become clear when it should have been blurred.

I'd appreciate your comments on the tilt-shift effect and how I could have improved the overall feel to improve things further.

Exif:
1/100s f/5.6
300mm
ISO100

[kaintheo]

Hi,

I,ve never tried this type of photography before but I think it does work. It really looks like a model.

I love it.

[benchdog]

Not sure how you really make any improvements. This real nice as it is.

[Krusty79]

That's a nice shot. I haven't tried that either, but I read that these shots are most effective when the foreground and background are blurred and the midground is in focus. Your foreground is not blurred, or at least not much of it. So, you'll have to plan what you want to use as your subject in the midground (if you go with that formula). I think it helps the effect when you have more people and cars in the focused area.