Increase the Sense of Depth in an image
Lesson 6 from: Photoshop AI: Getting Started with Neural FiltersBen Willmore
Increase the Sense of Depth in an image
Lesson 6 from: Photoshop AI: Getting Started with Neural FiltersBen Willmore
Lesson Info
6. Increase the Sense of Depth in an image
Lessons
Lesson Info
Increase the Sense of Depth in an image
(upbeat music) There's one neural filter that we have yet to cover and it is known as depth blur. It can be useful to try to isolate your subject on a blurry background. And in order to do that in camera, you either need to have a expensive lens that is known as fast glass. And even with an expensive lens, where the F-stop setting can go really low to like point or 0.95, you still can't always get the background to be blurry. The key is you need to magnify whatever your subject is by either having a lens that is a long focal length that pulls things in close or by moving in really close to your subject. And even with a fast glass, in many instances you simply will not be able to get the background to go out of focus. But with the lens blur filter, we can do that. You can also use the results of the lens blur filter as the starting point of other filters and I'll show you how to do that as we progress. But let's dive in and see how it works. Here's an image that I captured in Venice a...
nd I would like this building in the background to be soft so that your attention is on these two gondolas that are in the front. Here I am in the neural filters and the one filter we haven't covered yet is this one depth blur. Let's turn it on. And then already it's made the background of this image become soft and the nearby areas are sharp. Well, we can get control over the process by adjusting the settings that are found on the right side of my screen. The most obvious setting is blur strength. If I think the background is too blurry, I can lower that setting. Or if it's not soft enough, I can increase it. And literally all it does is adjust the blur amount. The unfortunate part about it is when you adjust the settings on the right side of your screen, there is no progress bar to tell you that Photoshop is busy. So if I bring this up and let's say I crank it up to and you just stare at the background, I'm looking and there's nothing to tell me that it hasn't finished its work, but if I just continue to stare at that background, eventually it will update. There it goes. I just wish there was something to tell me when it's done. Otherwise, you move the sliders around and you get confused 'cause you assume you're looking at the end result when you're not. So that's blur strength. Then above, there's a setting called focal distance and it determines how deep into your image should be the sharpest point. And right now it's saying about 25% of the depth in our photo, that far back is what should be sharp. So I'm guessing that might be somewhere in here or here. It's hard to say, but if I were to change the focal distance, let's say I make the distant area sharp, watch what happens. I'll just grab this slider and I'll drag it way out there. Now, areas that are far away should become sharp, but again, there's no progress bar, so I just have to sit and wait. There we go. And now we have distant buildings that are sharp and the nearby objects are supposed to be blurry. It's not very good at actually doing that because it will mask these nearby objects and it's gonna end up having crisp edges on them. So sure this boat is blurry, but the edge of the boat is not. The edge of these poles are not. So it is not very often that I would attempt to have the focal distance set to a far away point because it never looks natural. And in general, adjusting this focal distance with a slider, I almost never do. Instead, what you can do is move your mouse into the image itself. When you do, you get a little cross hair and you just click on what you'd like to have sharp. And when you do a little circle shows up, the focal distance slider ends up becoming grayed out, and then you just have to wait because there's no indication. But Photoshop is working right now and it will update in a few minutes. There we go. Then there is also a choice here called focal range, and that in general could be called depth of field, meaning, how wide of a range of areas should remain sharp. And so I'm gonna bring this up a considerable distance and we'll wait for it to update. And now you can see that more medium area is sharper. And so if you want just a little sliver of area in focus because your subject matter is not very deep, you could bring the focal range down and if instead your subject matter, you want to have sharp in this case is quite deep like we have here, you might need to crank it up a bit. And if you do that, you might need to increase your blur strength.
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Ratings and Reviews
Chris Evans
Introducing the brand new Neural Filters and the how to get the best out of them. Ben does this with his usual ease. The examples he uses are clear and precise and the extra tips he throws in are worth the price of admission alone! Brilliant class!!!
Audrey Agin
Oh Ben you are wonderful. I will have to watch this again. Parts are Medium to Advanced and that is what I am needing. These lessons showed so many different situations that a person may come across in their photography or restoring old photos. You also showed some work arounds! Most other teachers may mention something that the topic can also be applied to, but do not show how to do it. That is so frustrating! They stop short of giving a full lesson. You go deep into your lessons, I can always find info to help me out! Thank you!
Aston Moss
Great step by step instruction with some excellent ideas as to how to enhance and completely create images.