How To: PhotoShop Tilt Shift Photos

[mmm-five]

I love playing around with the filters in Photoshop, and could spend days playing around with the plug-ins & filters I've bought over the years (pity some no longer work on the newer versions of PhotoShop, and I don't use them enough to justify spending £5k upgrading them all), but you don't get the best out of them until you have to for a client.

I think I've found a 'Scalextric' mode too

Scalextric

 

[Angus McCoatup]

Here's a similar effect using a mask of the car with the Bokeh plug-in - which lets me put some blur into the background that's on the same plane (but further back) as the car.

Bokeh

That's really good mmm-five. I like how this technique has enabled you to blur the whole of the road sign while the car remains sharp.

Also like the 'Scalextric' shot with or without any photoshopping - the car just looks so good from that angle with that amount of 'war paint' on it

 

[PawnSacrifice]

Mr Whippy, thanks for that... I do need to have a look in my book at the best settings for taking the photos. I am now starting to think of tilt-shifting when taking the photos. The filters etc you mentioned would be nice, but I think I'd upgrade to full PS first. I tried previously what you suggested about bringing the people into focus - totally agree with what you said, and they are a pain (no offence guys) - but when I did it made the picture look odd. Still learning :wink:

mmm-five, a couple more great pics You're right, there's hours and days to be spent playing around with these things.

 

[Mr Whippy]

All fun techniques for playing/learning

The video ones look cool too... people on a beach look like ants... tis really amazing how the effect gives so much information about expected scale!

Dave

 

[Mafoo]

Excellent work. One question, what version of photoshop do you all use ?

 

[PawnSacrifice]

I'm using Photoshop Elements 8.0 for Mac - which I believe differs slightly from the Windows version. The full version of Photoshop CS would be great, but it's a lot of money for occasional use... as for some of the plugins mentioned, even they cost upwards of twice the price of Elements. If you are looking for something to get you started it's a good bet Amazon often have it on offer.

Otherwise PaintShop Pro was a good product, not used it for a while.

 

[Mr Whippy]

I'd just "download" PS if I were 'playing'

As soon as you want to use it to make money then buying it is ideal imo!

Some of the higher end companies work like that, happy to let people learn the software for non-corporate use, since then it gives feeders into paid industry who are likely to be faimilar with the tools, meaning that companies buy the software!

Dave

 

[mmm-five]

I'm still using bits from Creative Suite 1 (Photoshop 8) through 5 (Photoshop 12) as when I don't need the extra functionality of the new version it's usually quicker to fire up the smaller & nippier old version.

Also some plug-ins I've invested in don't work on CS5, some don't work on CS4, etc... and as the company has either been bought out or closed down it's not likely they'll provide a 64-bit Snow Leopard CS5 version.

You can download a legal trial of anything you're interested in from the Adobe site (it is quite big), and then when/if you decide to buy it, simply buy from the cheapest source.
I usually wait a while for the prices to drop, or buy the old version at considerable discount once the new version is released and then find a cheap upgrade path.

Sometimes I can get a client to pay for it for me when I tell them "I NEED this new bit to do your bit of work. I can do it manually but it'll take another couple of days to do it" (which is usually true, and if I already have the software then I don't need to do this). If they say no, then I simply get a couple of days extra pay to do the process manually, if they say yes then I get less pay from that client but I get the latest software and I have some free days to work for someone else (i.e. free software PLUS extra days pay).

 

[Mafoo]

Cheers. A lot of fuss is made about freeware programs. GIMP I have noticed seems to be touted as being as good as PS just not as user friendly in places.

Downloaded it last night. Probably naff but it is free so worth a shot.

 

[PawnSacrifice]

Similar to the link Tweed posted, this came from ga41's Twitter feed, some of it tilt-shifts better than others... in parts is sunning. Recommend full screen viewing:
http://vimeo.com/9679622

EDIT: Also, after the comments above, I may have a look and see if I can bag an old version of CS on eBay / Gumtree for a reasonable price