Do you know how to use the lens blur filter to create the illusion of depth? Gaussian blur is a good way to visually smooth regions that need smoothing, but it’s NOT very convincing at depth of focus, because it is a “nearest neighbor” blur, rather than a blur based on optics algorithms, which take the entire image into account while calculating regression, and utilize geometries outside the rigid 45 degree constraints of gaussian. At first it is hard to see the usefulness of the lens blur filter, since the interface is slow as molasses…
It is possible to crash Photoshop if this is applied to very large images, so start with smaller images and medium-sized images first. If you experiment with some of the settings on offer, you will quickly see how lens blur is better at smoothing surface texture. We’ll top it all off with a vignette, to integrate the merged layers and mimic the old “Circle of Confusion”.
Assignment:
1. Read Wikipedia – Circle of Confusion
2. Download Scooter.jpg
3. Open in Photoshop and try.
About The Author
Jay Hagstrom
This is my "coursework in-progress" for a book about retouching and photorealism. Please feel free to pose any questions you might have about the tutorials in the comments section on post, or contact me directly by clicking ASK JAY at the top of this page. Thanks for any input, I'll really appreciate it!
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