Tilt Shift Photoshop Tutorial: How to Make Fake Miniature Scenes
I discovered the Tilt Shift technique perusing the photography of Drew Wilson, an uber talented young photographer here in Sarasota. I asked him about the process and he was kind enough to share it with me.
Tilt shift photographs create an optical illusion that makes scenes appear as if they are actually miniature models (like your uncle’s train set). The outer edges are blurred which tricks the eye into perceiving everything in the unblurred parts as miniature. It’s a fun post processing trick – and it’s quite easy to reproduce.
UPDATE: Many of you have asked if there is a plug in or Tilt Shift software that will do this. The closest I’ve found so far is: FocalPoint 2 You can try it out for free.
Here is my (and Drew’s) Photoshop tutorial for creating fake tilt shift photos.
- Taking the photo. An above ground shot is usually best for this type of technique. Cityscapes, crowds, streets, and similar things are perfect.
- Open the shot in Adobe Photoshop and click onto “quick mask mode”.
- Select the gradient tool.
- Select the “cylindrical gradient reflected gradient”.
- Draw vertically upwards from where you want the point of focus to be up the screen to the top of the window, and release the mouse button. A red transparent line should appear.
- Go back into “Standard Mask Mode”.
- In Photoshop CS2 or CS3 go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur (Or if you have Photoshop 7.0 you can use Gaussian Blur). Then select the amount of blur you’d like. You can experiment with the radius value a bit to see what amount of blur looks best.
- (Optional) For a more “plastic” feel you can increase the saturation and contrast in the photo.
There you have it – you should have a nice “fake tilt shift” photo. You can experiment with lots of different photographs – some are a lot better than others for “miniaturization”.
And when you’re ready to step it up even more, you can incorporate HDR Photography and Tilt Shift together for amazingly stunning fake miniature scenes in high contrast. Using the above technique along with HDR software, such as top brand Photomatix (we have a 15% Off Coupon code), you can achieve results like this:
photo credit: Brandon Godfrey
Below are a few more examples of the tilt shift technique for producing realistic looking miniature scenes. Feel free to link to your own tilt shift photos in the comments. Happy shrinking!
I love these tilt shift shots.
i just made it. from the brighton station aerial. i dont take credit for the original photo. i take credit for the tilt-shift
I have photoshop 7 and I can’t seem to find where to adjust the radius value. I used Gaussian Blur to blur my image as you mentioned because when I go to Filter>Blur>Blur..the adjusting table doesn’t appear. Whats your advise? By the way..your pics are wesome!
DeXtmL
Thomas
http://sylwiabesz.com/photo/2008/08/11/miniaturki01/
It really helps if your images are vivid to the point of looking like toy colours.
Some of my examples are here: http://hitchedhiker.com/2009/02/13/tilt-shift-photography/
And Here: http://hitchedhiker.com/2009/02/14/toronto-miniaturize/
Hope you like em.
Can anyone help us figure this out?
I think the original shot has a lot to do with it. Make sure your subject is very sharp and that you have a wide angle of the surroundings. Also, make sure the colours are very vivid. All of this help with the effect, before you apply it.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3641/3615131402_6e77f70c36.jpg
Doesn’t sound clear, but it’s the way I’ve always fauxed my tilt-shifts.
you can find it at http://www.photoguides.net/photoshopping-tilt-shift-video
thanks so much guys for this. Another excellent method of passing my insomniatic evenings
here’s my first attempt:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pj-girl/3573524146/?reuploaded=1
Thanks for the tutorial. I have just done this lot in a hour. I found it was best to vary the type of gradient according to the area you want to blur and you can add areas by going back in and out of the quick mask function.
My photos are here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39844762@N02/sets/72157620962462034/
I think it’s worth mentioning that when you’re dragging the gradient line (Step 5), you should drag from the focal point to where you want the picture to be most out of focus, which isn’t necessarily going to be the top of the image.
I did a couple of shots through working out a multi-layer process that although it gave me very precise control over the results was also very laborious. I’ll be sticking with this method in the future I think, although sometimes it might be worth going back to my old way.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2004787&l=56a6f626bc&id=841128958
The old way:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1334901&l=b262fe763d&id=841128958
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1338773&l=6ecb24cc97&id=841128958
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlosalk/3835875336
What do you think?
Thanks in advance!
S.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diseniopasto/3674021714/
ciao..!
Here you can see my first attempt in using this technique:
View on black
Have a nice day
thx
http://www.vimeo.com/keithloutit
Help!!
Thanks,
Janet
PS- I’m working on this for a project htt://projectartaday.blogspot.com
To Janet, I too was wondering why my “marching ants” first selected the whole image then they did not go away after I finally got it all working right. First I had to try the instructions above a couple of different times. I even closed everything and restarted Photoshop. That seemed to help. Then, once everything was going well, to get rid of the “ants” try this, click on the “Magic Wand” and then Right-Click on your image and then click “Deselect” on the menu that pops up. That should get rid of the Marching Ants but leave your work intact.
Here’s mine:
http://beyond-babypunk.blogspot.com/2010/02/33365-another-tuesday-morning.html
In this one I learned that some things, like telephone poles, should be in focus as long as they start in the focused zone.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackgrover1/4365537321/in/set-72157623331271347/
In this one I kept the entire building (far right) in focus and it works out much better.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackgrover1/4365537163/in/set-72157623331271347/
With this one I was exploring at what angle do you completely loose the miniature effect. This was close, but enhancing the colors helped keep it border-line.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackgrover1/4366282256/in/set-72157623331271347/
Hope that helps
http://tinyurl.com/3xjy24d
Basically, look at the picture of the red car. The car, the street and the bushes are all in focus. But the tree is not in focus. This is where POST tilt shift fails. That tree is part of the same in focus DOF as the car and bushes, yet it’s made to be out of focus by user error.
While in quick mask mode, you need to leave out any vertical subject that’s within the “in-focus” group.
Same with that pic of the buildings at night. If the base of the building is in focus, the tops of the buildings should be too.
It doesn’t matter so much with extremely distant shots like the island buildings.
Is there a way to modify the mask.
In this case: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oregon_State_Beavers_Tilt-Shift_Miniature_Greg_Keene.jpg
The field goal is in the same focuse level, but is blurred out. Is there a way to exclude this part?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrobananas/5281612106/in/pool-18329392@N00/lightbox/
Do you know if it is possible to do a fake miniature effect in video mode too? I saw this effect in the movie “The social network” and havent been able to get it out of my mind ever since! I want to know how to do it without buying expensive T-S lens.
Here is my attempt.
Great job anyhow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/proverb/5459628138/
Played with some off road shots my son took in Hollister, CA. I enjoyed the tutorial. I used CS and gaussian blur worked the easiest. Thanks!
http://www.uniqlo.com/calendar/?cID=JP&aID=13109
http://www.freewebelements.com/tilt-shift-photography/
I also tried to make this tutorial on photoshop : http://www.digital-camera-photography.org/2012/03/tilt-shift-photoshop-tutorial.html
you can get much better results if u apply the gradient first on the ground. then any objects that protrude vertically out of the ground should take their depth from the ground level. use the eye dropper to sample the mask at the bottom and then a paint brush to fill the object.
i use a soft brush for the edges when painting the mask for blurry objects. this allows the object to blur past its edges. if you dont do this you will get a weird unrealistic result when a foreground out of focus is occluding an in-focus part of the image.
in any case maybe my post is useful for those who want to force some part of the image to be in or out of focus.
Photoshop Tutorials for Photographers
Thanks
Keep the great work my friend
my first attempt didn work so well but i will keep on trying…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Kf5J-fDlU
what do you guys think?
What I did was, I made a duplicate layer. Then applied lens blur on entire image. Then I used eraser tool and erased the portion on the duplicate layer that I wanted to highlight. Now only my object is highlighted rest all is blur.