Creating a tilt shift effect

- [Instructor] Photoshop has a great filter to create a tilt shift effect in post. In this image, I want to convert it to a Smart Object, so under the Filter menu, I'll choose Convert for Smart Filters, and then Filter, Blur Gallery, Tilt Shift. Photoshop automatically adds a tilt shift filter. We can reposition the blur in the image area by dragging on the pin. I can change the amount of blur by dialing it in, or by using the options in the Blur Tools area, and using the Blur slider.

We can see that no blur is being applied between the solid white lines, and then it starts to blur between the solid white line and the dotted lines. So this is the fade range. We can change the distance between any of these by clicking and dragging. If I want to change the distance of both the lines at the same time, I'll hold down the Option key to change both of the dotted lines, or the white lines. In order to rotate this, so that I can just get these two apples in focus, I can either click and drag right next to the solid dots.

Or, you can hold down the mouse, so click and hold between the solid and dotted lines and then rotate. Just be sure that you don't click, because if you click you'll add a secondary tilt shift. I'll tap the Delete key there, and then click on the pin in order to reactivate it. I'll adjust its location by repositioning it and tighten up the area that is not going to be affected by the blur. If I want to add distortion I can use the slider, moving the distortion in one direction or in the other direction.

To make that a little bit more obvious, let's add a bigger blur. Now we can see the distortion, but the distortion only happens in the foreground area by default. If I want it to also affect the background area, or the area on the other side of these dotted lines, then I'll choose Symmetric Distortion, and now it blurs on both sides of those dotted lines. I'll toggle that off and decrease the amount of blur here. And I just want to mention a few more options.

You can always make a selection before you add a filter in Photoshop. If so, the selection bleed area here would enable me to soften those edges. The focus actually throws out the entire image in focus so that nothing even starts in focus. I can save a mask to a channel. Improve the quality, although this will also take a longer time to render. And before I apply this, I'll want to add a little bit of noise. I'll zoom in using Command + 1 so that we can see this at 100%, and I'll increase the amount of grain.

And the reason I'm choosing Grain over Uniform or Gaussian is because this photograph was captured on a digital camera and the grain amount most closely emulates that type of noise that you would get from the camera capture. So I'm just going to add a little bit of grain here. I'll probably take down the size. And I'm going to increase the roughness, because I can see the difference between the noise that's in the original image and what I'm adding, this just looks too sharp.

So I'll move the roughness slider over. I could also introduce color into that noise area, and I could decrease the noise in the highlight area, if I don't want to add it there. Excellent, I'll click OK. We can see that Photoshop has applied the Tilt Shift filter to the image. Before we wrap up, I just want to mention two things. One, if you're going to use this effect, it helps to be looking down on the subject matter, especially if you want it to look like a toy model.

You'll want to have a higher vantage point when you photograph your subject. And it really helps if you don't have overlapping objects or shapes in the image, because it makes it much more difficult to cut the depth of field across the photograph. And that's how you add a tilt shift effect to your image in Photoshop.