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Faking a Tilt-and-Shift Effect in Photoshop

This is a really effective and deceptively simple process that is most commonly used to create a distortion of scale – makes any shot with buildings and people in look like a model village! But it’s also really effective for creating a false depth of field, and forcing a point of focus.

Basically you make a selection of the whole image, apart from a stripe across where you want the image to remain in focus.  It works best with shots taken from a high viewpoint, with people and buildings in.  …but I haven’t got any of those handy so I’m going to demonstrate on something completely different!   A photo of two people walking down a canal tow path!

Open the unprocessed image in Photoshop.   Work out where you want the in-focus strip to be in the photo and create a Selection with it.

The easiest way to make this selection is to enter Quick Mask Mode (Shift + Q), and select the Gradient Tool (Shift + G), specifying Reflected Gradient (fourth icon along).

Make sure Opacity is set to 100%, and draw a line from the centre of your selected point of interest at a right angle to the way your ‘line of interest’ runs, and out to the edge of the frame.

Switch out of Quick Mask mode (Shift + Q). Your selection should now be made (usually two scalene triangles, or trapezoids, either side of the ‘focus strip’).

With your selections made, apply an extreme Lens Blur effect (from the Filters menu).   A Blade Curvature of 100, and a radius of 60 is a good place to start (make yourself comfortable while the effect is previewed, it can take a while if you’re using a full-size image… if it’s really taking too long, try changing the Image Mode to 8-bit).   Adjust the amount of blur until you get the desired effect, and then apply.

Et voila – not the most effective image for demonstrating this technique, but looking at the water and the pylons in the distance creates a slight sense of confusion in the viewer.  But it does work much better on cityscapes from high viewpoints… Honest! 

Tags: blur, demonstration, fake, lens blur, photoshop, quick mask, scale, tilt and shift, Tutorials

8 Comments to Faking a Tilt-and-Shift Effect in Photoshop

1. 

   Here’s another example…
   
Paul on February 28th, 2009
2. 

   I never even thought of doing stuff like this in Photoshop, and I didn’t eralise you could use gradients as masks.

   Great tutorial, I’ll have to try this out sometime . . .
Darren Rogers on March 1st, 2009
3. 

   I tried it… it worked!
   Thanks Paul (& Stu)!
ash on March 3rd, 2009
4. 

   This is so fun. I did this one of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence a while ago:
   
lisa-k on March 5th, 2009
5. 

   hey, that didn’t work. Apparently I can make a tilt-shift photo, but I can post a message. der.
lisa-k on March 5th, 2009
6. 

   Hmm, still not working. Anyway, here’s the photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisak/2332732304/in/photostream/

   
lisa-k on March 5th, 2009
7. 

   That looks superb!
Paul on March 5th, 2009
8. 

   Just stumbled onto the most fantastic project on vimeo that applies this technique to video. It’s called ‘Little Sydney’ and it’s really worth checking out:

   http://vimeo.com/channels/keithloutitssydney
Nicholas on March 12th, 2009

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