What’s Your Preference?

prabbit237 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:13 PM

I know of a person who makes the most realistic model dioramas around.

But the DOF can be a real pain with such.

Or is it really a model?

martha36 · #2 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:15 PM

Very cool! I like everything about it.

Preacherman · #3 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:16 PM

No way man. Is it really? I think the only way I will believe it is if you show us. That is truly remarkable. PAUL

vissarah · #4 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:18 PM

Looks like it's a fake tiltshift shot made in photoshop.. Cool shot

junglebear · #5 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:21 PM

I've read about these lenses, somehow they make everything look like a little tiny model. Didn't know you could photoshop them, I'll have to look into that.
To answer your question, no I don't think it is really a model!

SoxAddict · #6 (**permalink**) 01-12-2010, 08:26 PM

Very cool! Is this a tiltshift image? It's on my to-do list to have a go at one sometime.

prabbit237 · #7 (**permalink**) 01-13-2010, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vissarah

Looks like it's a fake tiltshift shot made in photoshop.. Cool shot

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoxAddict

Very cool! Is this a tiltshift image? It's on my to-do list to have a go at one sometime.

Yeah, it's photoshopped, I'll admit. Was a bit tricky getting the focal point far enough back where I wanted it (basically just kept hitting the "undo" and trying again.) Basically, I made two copies of the pic and added a layer mask to each using a gradient to where if ya turn off the original layer, you'd see a band of the original fading to transparent on both top and bottom. Then used a gaussian blur on those two layers to blur the upper section and again the lower. I also adjusted the colors (almost over-saturating them to make it look less 'real') and also used "sharpen edge" to make the edges more distinct (and, again, slightly less 'life-like'.)

I've got a pic of 3 train cars that I wanna do the same thing to but it's gonna be a LOT trickier cause the tree line along one side angles both back and to the side due to perspective. I can't just do a simple band like I did on this one and blur just above and below it.

Also it was fun climbing up on top of a minivan with a bad back and a fear of heights just to get the angle higher

Oh, and yeah, I know they have tilt lenses (mainly designed to REMOVE the DOF problem for landscapes) but I'm working with a $300 camera here (basically a bridge camera with a 12x zoom) so I can't even use add-on lenses (well, they do make one add-on to give it another 1.5x zoom), filters, etc. So I make do with what I have. But I like to think I'm getting kinda good with it (and kinda good with the post-processing.) Yeah, there's others here and elsewhere who are WAY better than I am but there's also a LOT of really, REALLY bad pics out there on the net as well.

Here's the original from the camera as well as a screenshot showing how I did the gradient mask layers.