Another Tilt Shift Fake from Venice

Jay925 · November 24, 2009

Thought I may as well post another up

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jack-fitzsimons/4129845649/" title="Venice Tilt Shift #3 by Jack Fitzsimons Photography, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2725/4129845649_0b2b16a225_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="Venice Tilt Shift #3" /></a>

tijoseph · November 24, 2009

Love it
I like how these always somehow look like a miniature scale setup or something. Kind of like a scene from a model railroad. Only no trains in this one...

Could you share your technique with us?

Dogdots · November 24, 2009

Cool -- I like the red and white posts

Jay925 · November 24, 2009

tijoseph wrote:

I like how these always somehow look like a miniature scale setup or something. Kind of like a scene from a model railroad. Only no trains in this one...

Could you share your technique with us?

Of course, I'd be more than happy to.

The Idea of a fake tilt shift is to do exactly that- to make the picture appear like it's a "miniature scale set up" as you put it. Table-top models.

First off- I do this in CS2/CS4 depending on the computer I'm working on at the time. It can be done in Elements slightly different without too much more effort, (except Elements 2.0 and 3.0 which require a free plugin and some more time spent tweaking). If any of you are Linux users I'll also happily go through the process in GIMP as well (seeing as I stick to OS X and Linux the most). It requires more work, but the same result can be achieved.

For now I'll go on the assumption that you've got a version of Photoshop installed.

To start with, if you have any adjustments to make (contrast, WB etc) in LR then do so and open it in Photoshop with those changes.

Duplicate the layer, (name them separately if you want- I tend to name the first layer "Original" and the duplicated layer "Blurred"). Create a layer mask on the "Blurred" layer and select the gradient tool (keyboard shortcut of G) and select "reflected gradient". Then draw a line downwards roughly over the part you don't want to be OOF- Make sure you do this on the layer mask and not the image.

Once that's done, click on the image ("Blurred" layer still) to make it active and go to "Filters" --> "Blur" --> "Lens Blur" and choose to make the "Depth Map" Source as the Layer Mask. Then play with the amount of Lens Blur you want (by adjusting the "Radius" slider). I usually keep it between 35-50.

When you're happy, click OK and let it apply the filter.

The final touch to make it look like miniature models is to increase the saturation. Play with the saturation settings as much as you want and that's it.

If anyone has anymore questions please feel free to ask. Also- if anyone would like a more visual method of what I just explained, I'd be more than happy to post a walkthrough with screen-shots.

Regards,

Jay.

Another Tilt Shift Fake from Venice

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