One of the spiffy things you can do with it (and very trendy among landscape photographers at the moment) is to make a lens-tilt effect.
Lens-tilt is something we've been using for decades in architecture. Basically, when you point a normal camera up at a tall building it gets all foreshortened, but if you use a bellows lens with a tilt facility you can make the building the same width all the way up, like you're looking at it straight on instead of from underneath.
Boring, huh?
Well the fun part is that it also messes with your sense of focus in a really neat and trippy way, and if you apply that effect to a normal photo with a bit of Photoshop jiggery-pokery it makes things look all teeny tiny like toys.
Woohoo! Petit Paris from the top of a three-foot Arc de Triomphe!Click on these to get a better effect.
If anyone's curious, this is how you do it:
- Open a photo in Photoshop and add a blank layer to it.
- Convert the layer to an alpha channel and add a monochrome gradient to it (black/white/black - top to bottom).
- Open the lens-blur filter and choose the alpha channel as your source, then dick around with the sliders until it all goes Toytown.
- Yay!
While Katie was here we visited Stranger's Hall Museum in Norwich. Here are some pics I took in there that I've used lens-tilt to make into doll's house rooms.
A teeny tiny dining room for dieters.
A teeny tiny music room for me.
A teeny tiny toyroom for even teenier tinier tots.Now have a go yourselves.
Have fun y'all.
15 comments:
That is really neat. It DOES look miniature. Thanks for the tips about how to do that.
In the teeny tiny toyroom, there's a teeny tiny quilt.
The magic word for today brings back memories of Nixon: spirro. Good riddance.
I don't have Photoshop so I can't do this myself, but it sure is fun to look at these photos. I had no idea I'd visited the Stranger's Hall Dollhouse! And the view from the Arc is too trippy for words. Such fun!
A Photoshopped Paris photo? That is just wrong! And freaking hilarious.
Crap: wv is mousi!
So these rooms are actually people-sized? Cool effect.
Fun photos! I'll have to try it out -- thanks for the how-to.
I really like the teensy music room.
I've been wanting to know how to achieve this effect for yonks! Thanks for the teeny-weeny tutorial, Dive.
You know there is an iPhone app that does the same thing too. It's messing with the depth of field.
Lupine Lady: I bet that quilt was a real pain to stitch.
Katie: Don't you remember how hard it was to squeeze through the tiny door to the museum? We found that little bottle with the label saying "Drink Me."
Or was I dreaming that?
Cali: I admit Paris doesn't need Photoshopping but I simply couldn't resist.
Petrea: Yes indeed. I might do a full-sized post on the place one day.
Ms.M: Me too. So much easier to keep tidy than my studio.
Lucio: My pleasure.
The settings I used on these were:
Blur focal distance: 254
Hexagon - radius 40
Blade curvature 40
and the rest on default.
Vanda: it seems there is an iPhone app for everything. If only the iPhone came without a phone I might be tempted to buy one. I hate pesky phones.
That's so freaking cool!!!!
I wonder if programs other than Photo Shop will allow you to do this.
Katherine: I have no idea, but I imagine there must be some Photshop clone-like programmes out there that allow you to mess with stuff like that.
It's fun!
Wow! and wow! again. Am going to try this tonight. I love photos of miniature figurines (probably got that from 3D postcards...), but never knew how to do THIS! Thanks, Dive!
It's certainly a lot of fun, Kim, and definitely something you'd be good at.
Certain subjects really work well, especially things like plazas and squares full of people taken from a high vantage point; the people look like little toy figures.
Enjoy your Photoshop playtime!
Hey, I did it... 500 words... whew.. I missed you guys!
Morning, Dive. OK - I tried to follow your instructions, but am afraid I didn't get very far. The whole "alpha channel" thing is new to me. I added a blank layer, but am now lost, even with photoshop help. I think I've got an alpha channel going (can't remember what I did to get that), and I have a "gradient map mask" locked to it, but it's uniform looking and not doing any top-to-bottom thing.
So maybe I should start again from the beginning. How exactly do I convert the new layer to an alpha channel? And how do I add a monochrome gradient to it that goes top to bottom? If you had time to give a few more details, I'd be most appreciative! Sorry to bother you with this, but I'm very inspired by the possibilities of this lens-blur thing. Thanks!
I missed you too, Pru!
Glad to have you back on board.
Kim: One tutorial coming right up!
Post a Comment