More Fun With Teeny Tiny Things

If any of your compendious memories stretch back to two posts ago you'll remember me giving a few hints and tips on how to fake lens-tilt effects using Photoshop.

The lovely Kim (purveyor of the most truly awesome secret soup on the planet - and no, I'm not giving away the secret, so nyaa!) has requested a somewhat more informative tutorial than my previous "dick around with the sliders until it all goes Toytown."

So … Strap in and let's go!

First up. Open a photo in Photoshop.
Don't moan that you've not got Photoshop. This is a tutorial specifically for Kim, but if you do have it and want to play, feel free to join in.
Today we'll be shrinking the cute little park under the Eiffel Tower to tabletop size.

So that we can do that, we need to create a new layer (Layers Menu - New - New Layer).
If - like me - you're using Photoshop CS3 because your skanky boss won't stump for CS4 in a recession you'll get a little pop-up window like this.
Hit the OK and let's move on.

From your "Window" Menu you'll want to make sure these two submenus are open: the "Layers" and the "Channels" menus.

Next step is to turn your new layer into an "Alpha Channel" so we can get whizzy and do cool stuff.
If you look down in the bottom right you'll see I've rather scruffily drawn a little red square around the button you want to push.
If you hover your cursor over it a little descriptor window will tell you "Create New Channel".

Oh, by the way, you might want to click on these to get a bit better image.

Yikes! It's all gone black!
What we're looking at here is a blank Alpha Channel.
Alpha channels are incredibly useful, especially if - like me - you work in 3D programmes a lot. With a little messing in this window I can create bump map masks and do awesome stuff like this. Yay for alpha channels!

Anyhoo …
Top left of this picture is how you want to set up your gradients using the simple drop-down menus and just the normal presets.
Click and drag and you'll see you're making a line. You can hold down "Shift" to constrain it to the vertical and then let go to produce your gradient.
Mess around in here making a few different sorts and within a minute or two you'll be more than proficient.

So!
Here's what we want to see next. Single click on the "Background" to bring up your original picture again. The alpha channel should default to "off".

Should you wish to check your gradient against the picture simply click the alpha channel to "on" using the little eye-shaped doohickey I've outlined in messy freehand red.

Here's where the fun starts:
Go to your "Filters" menu and scroll down the drop-down until you reach "Blur", then scroll down the sub-menu to "Lens Blur".

First up:
Click on the "Faster" button (if you've not got a whizzy new Mac you'll want to save the "More Accurate" button for the final stage otherwise things take all day to happen).

Next: In the "Depth Map" menu, use the scroll-down menu button to select "Alpha 1" (or whatever you've named your alpha channel) as the source for the filter.

You can mess with shapes but I generally leave that button set to the default "Hexagon"

Now set the sliders to whatever you feel looks good, but a good place to start is with my own settings here.
This is where my previous, more sketchy and generally crap tutorial said "dick around with the sliders until it all goes Toytown", but once you've done it you'll know that's actually a pretty accurate description of what it feels like.
When you're happy, hit the "More Accurate" button, then "OK".

For outside shots with lens-tilt effect, you can enhance the "Toytown" look by adding just a couple more touches to make it look like it's a model lit by a light bulb.

Under the "Image" Menu, and the "Adjustments" sub-menu, select "Hue/Saturation" and crank the saturation slider a little.
You can really go to town on this by using the "Master" drop down menu to adjust the saturation of individual colour channels, but as a quick fix the "Master" setting is just fine.

Back in the "Image" - "Adjustments" Menu, select "Brightness/Contrast" and whack up the contrast to give a nice, cheesy fakeness to your photo.

Et voilà! A teeny tiny horse chestnut tree underneath the Eiffel Tower.

Here are a few more lens-tilt fakes:

The tiny London Eye by night.
I love the way it makes the chubby little tugboats alongside Westminster Pier look like something from the bathtub.

My tiny train station.

A teeny tiny little racing car at Silverstone.

Even a tiny Katie doll outside the doll's house from the previous lens-tilt post.
Okay, so some subjects work better than others, but it's fun to play and find out.

So there you have it, Kim. I hope that helps you have a big bundle of fun playing with your Photoshop.

Love to you and Arthur!

Toodle-pip!