Here’s a video, that shows, how can be bend time and see how we would look like in couple of years from now. Isn’t Phogoshop great?

Time from Aaron Nace on Vimeo.

What is a tilt shift lens?

A tilt shift lens is exactly as it’s name says. It tilts and shifts to deform the focus which creates a blurry image. It is used to point out a object in the photo with focusing it and making it sharp or hiding unwanted objects by blurring the part of the image out of focus. It also has a effect that when taken from the above angle, everything looks miniature, small and unreal. It’s used mostly on dSLR’s. With the help of Photoshop and some effects we can manipulate the photo so it looks as it was taken with a tilt-shift lens. Let’s start.

Tilt shift effect Photoshop tutorial

So here’s the tilt shift effect. For this tutorial you will need:

• Adobe Photoshop
• a image that is shot from above down on people/trees/cars etc.
• some time

First open your image in Photoshop. For this tilt shift tutorial i will be using the daily free one from IStockPhoto.com. Go there and download the big version of the image for free.

Here is what it look like:

Now you will nee to duplicate the image and hide the original bottom one. On the above layer, add a mask using the mask button in the layer window.

Select the Gradient tool and use these settings for it:

Now draw in the mask with the gradient tool so you get a similar look like the image below. The transparent part will be sharp after we finish, so have that in mind when you work on your own photos.

We will now apply a filter but first make sure you have the image selected in the layers window(a white square over the image, not the layer mask), then go to Filter -> Blur -> Lens blur…. This will bring up a filter interface.

Now i’ll explain the settings for this interface. For the tilt shift effect you need to select the Depth map source to Layer mask. You can play width the blur focal distance to get a different effect or just leave it at 0.

The iris is the shape of the aperture in the lens pf a dSLR photo camera. It’s usually the Hexagon so go with this option and play with other settings until you find something you like.

Specular highlights are the hexagon dots the iris makes when the image is blurred. Pretty nice effect that really simulates the real camera lens. The brightness should be low and the threshold should be really high. This settings depend on the image you apply this effect to so start experimenting at threshold 250 and lowering it and brightness 0 and going up. Don’t overdue it though, keep it clean.

Noise is the setting you usually don’t want, it simulates errors that are made when using high ISO setting on a digital photo camera, use 0 here.

That’s it, hit OK and see what you get. Also delete or hide the Mask of the image layer. This is what it should look like.

And these are the buildings at 100%. They already look like they were made of cardboard and painted. But the next step will make that feel even better, we’re going to adjust the colors.

We will use 3 adjustment layers. The first one is Hue/Saturation. Bring up the Saturation, but not too much, around 20-30 is usually ok.

The next one is Levels. This helps bring the picture a better exposure etc. Use the lover triangles to define the histogram like below:

The last one is Curves which will bring up the contrast more. Make the S line like the image shows.

Try not to overdue everything and keep it balanced. Now we’re done! Here are the final images, the original one, the one with til-shift effect and the one with the tilt-shift and adjustments layers.

As you may notice, this effect is best when you have buildings etc. so crop the image there for best results.

Now start enjoying the little things in life and don’t forget to subscribe to my rss feed! ^^

And since this is a really popular photography/animation technique there are a lot of people working with it to bring us something new. One of those guys is Ryan Cashman. He made a animation from those photos and added piano music resulting in something really creative and unique.

Anyone who doesn’t understand how this is done, it start’s with taking a photograph on manual setting where you open your aperture for a longer time, 5-10 seconds. In that time, you can move or use light to paint. After that, you add the images into a sequence(usually you need 24 pics for 1 second of video) and you get a animation. Add sound and you just finished a nice artistic video.

Here’s the Light painting techinque on a piano:

Things you need:

• Photoshop ;D
• Picture of a bottle or product – click here to download sample one
• Picture of a water splat, click here to download a free HQ one that also has transparency.

First open your picture of the product, i’ll be using a Finlandia bottle since i’m a fan of it’s design and quality. If you’re a fan of photography, you make make such photos in a 5€ macro studio. Also import the transaprent water photo (download it here). Duplicate it and hide the bottom one so you keep a clean original layer for later use. Set the other ones blending to “Screen”.

After that “scale down” and “position” the water layer to the product like the first picture shows below. The second picture is a zoom view. I have used the “Rectangular marquee tool” and used it on the “water layer!” but the width and the height is applied to the bottle since this is going to be blurry because i want the water splat too be behind the bottle. Use the “Layer via cut” option when right clicking.

On the new made layer, change the blending again to “Screen” and then go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussion blur and blur the image. I have used the setting of around 3px. Clean the image a bit so it really does look like it is behind the bottle.

On the same layer, add mask to it and use the “Gradient tool” from left to right to make the ilussion perfect. Right click on the layer and use the “Free transforma”. Again right-click and choose “Warp”. Do a similar warp transofmation like the second picture below, apply when done. This will give the layer the look like viewing something through the bottle.

Duplicate the hidden water layer and make it visible, rotate it and scale it down like the first picture below and place it in the right position like the second picture shows. Try to really use the water and blend it with the object/product you are working on. Try to experiment with different shapes. Use a soft eraser and erase the left part that is too big.

The next step will be to delete the bottom right part of the bottle and break it’s shape. There is now a line that needs to be deleted (the first picture below). Mak a new layer and use a “white soft brush” and make the hole in the bottle like the second picture shows. After that, just hit “CTRL+I” to invert it to black. You can skip the white brush step though, i just did it like this to show you where i used the brush since you can’t see it in detail when you use black color on black.

The next step will be adding more water so again duplicate the original hidden water layer and use the “Eraser” to delete the unneeded parts like the second picture shows. I hided the other layers to easily see the whole water layer.

Make the other layers visible again (first picture). Duplicate it 3 times and make it a half circle that will fit the half-circeled lower part of the bottle. After that you will need to clean it. Use the eraser for that on the lover layers.

And you’re done. Play with it and use your own creativity to make it eben better. Here’s the final image:

How do you like my fanart? I hope you enjoy the tutorial.