Hi I'm Doug McKinlay and you're watching AdoramaTV. For this episode we're going to have
a bit of fun by giving some of our images and miniaturizing effect by
using some tilt-shift Photoshop magic without actually using a tilt shift lens, basically, faking it.
AdoramaTV presents 'Stay Focused' with Doug McKinlay.
In essence tilt-shift photography manipulates focus and depth of field to yield photos
with a selective focus which can mimic a miniature model, and that's our goal
today. I think the best way to illustrate this is to go through a step-by-step
process using some image samples and Photoshop.
Picking an appropriate picture is possibly the most important step.
Choosing the right photo will ensure that your final image has a maximum effect by
starting off on the right foot.
Tilt shift photography tends to work best for photos that have a wide view, a relatively large aperture and are
taken from higher ground. The photo doesn't necessarily have to be an aerial
shot but it should be something that is composed of many small parts that make
up a whole. You should be able to envision how your photo might be
manipulated to look like a minature even before its Photoshop transformation.
For me I'm using a processed TIFF file that is a little heavy handed with the clarity. This will
help improve the edge sharpness in the final image. OK, so what we're going to do
now is we're going to look at doing some tilt shift magic on one of our images, so
we're going to do some Photoshop. I'm using CS4 but pretty much all versions do it.
So first things first, we're going to find our image. Again we talked about
earlier about finding an image shot from above so the one I'm going to choose is a shot from
some of the streets in London and we'll open that up and it's an image that
I shot from above
near Charing Cross station. So the first things first is we're going to find the
gradient tool. If you can't find it it's probably hiding behind the paint bucket
tool so just click on the bottom right hand
corner, out comes gradient tool. Choose that. On the top of your interface you'll see five little gray
boxes, make sure you pick the one four across from the left that's the mirror
gradient tool reflected so you reflect your gradient tool. Choose that. You have three little boxes further
to the right. The transparency other in reverse. That's the way it's set now is default.
Make sure reverse is not clicked and then from there we're going to do is we're
going to do a quick mask of our picture so you can either do it by pressing Q
on your keyboard or the bottom of your tool box on the left hand side, you just
click that little box at the bottom and then we're going to start to create our
TS effect. Now, this is really hit and miss, you might, it might take you three or
four times to get it right so I want the red umbrella in this picture to stand
out a little bit so I'm going to start with my gradient tool at the red umbrella,
halfway along it, and then I'm going to drag it up. So I've got a line going up the frame,
to about mid way through the awning in this image . Don't go all the way to the top. Then you should get
a red band across your image that is showing you the parts of the image
which are going to be sharper, ok? Then turn the quick mask off by
clicking...either pressing Q again or pressing the box. Then you'll see marching ants running
around the image, ok? And then from there what we want to do, is we want to go to
filter. Drag down to blur. Across and down to lens blur. Now this is the
interface that comes up and this is where we're going to start to adjust how
much of this blur we want. Now I can drag this- just to show you how it works- I'll drag,
we're using the radius slider, if I drag it all the way to the left it's like there's
been nothing added to it. It just looks like the normal picture. If I drag it all the way to the
right, it looks really heavy handed and just a bit, well more than a bit- way too much.
So grab your slider, the radius slider and drag it from a hundred, start going back towards
50ish and it's a real judgment thing. It's a real sort of what you, as an
individual, might like.
So I'm at fifty-five there, I might drag it down just a smidge more.
Around 50 and once you're happy with that then click OK and then the computer
will apply the lens blur to the image. Now, how fast this works depends
on a couple of things. How big your image is, if it's a really big image it's going to take
some time and also how quick your computer is. This particular picture is about 7MB.
It's a jpg file. I don't want to go any bigger than that right now
because otherwise I'd be sitting here for half an hour waiting for this lens
filter to apply and that's just about finished and as it finishes its going to
open up back into Photoshop and you'll still see your marching ants so
just deselect the marching ants and your picture's almost ready to go. Now I'm
looking at this image and I'm thinking it might benefit from a slight crop at the top and the
side and just a little bit at the bottom, maybe a little more at the top there. So I'm going to crop that
out a little bit, I'm very close to finishing. Two last things, though. I'm going to go to
Image- Adjustments- Hue/Saturation and I'm going to bump up the saturation a
little bit just to add a little more surrealness to the picture. Now I
wouldn't go too crazy on this, maybe about 15 + 15 ish. You can
check how much you've done by just clicking the preview button, on and off, to the right hand side.
Yeah, it looks good. Press OK and finally before saving, I'm going to go back to Image-
Adjustments and then down to curves. I'm going to put a slight S curve on this. So
once that box is opened up, the top right hand corner grab your line there
and just drag it up a little bit. Don't go crazy with it and to adjust a little
bit more punch to it, a little more contrast, grab and shadow the bottom box on the left and
drag it down a little smidge. This is a real judgment thing. This is completely up to
you how you might like it. So that's not to bad, press OK and once you're image is
back up then
save it anywhere you want and that's it. It's a very simple process.
So with any luck, your final product is a subject in miniature. This process is relatively
easy, once you've done it a few times and with practice and the correct image
selection, your minitures will only improve.
Thanks for watching and I'm Doug McKinlay for AdoramaTV. Don't forget you can also subscribe
to AdoramaTV for more great videos.
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