A Tilt Shift Fakes Tutorial – Model Auckland

Posted: Monday, May 25th, 2009 in All, Tutorials

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Since seeing some tilt shift photography about three years ago, I have been fascinated with the technique and the results that can be achieved.  I have no real justification for buying a real tilt shift lens, so the next best way of producing such results (for me) is Adobe Photoshop (a Gimp tutorial is listed at the end of this article). Of course, an essential starting point is a suitable photograph, and for this article I am using a series of images taken in 2007 from the Sky Tower in Auckland… the views are insanely good if the weather is on your side and it is generally a photo taken from above the subject that works well for producing tilt shift fakes.

Wikipedia has this to say:

Tilt-shift miniature faking is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is. Many miniature faked photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. Objects oriented horizontally, such as the train in the first example, make better subjects for tilt-shift miniature faking than vertically oriented objects.

The process is fairly simple, though I recommend tweaking the settings I have used to suit your requirements and tastes. Not all images work well with this technique, so just keep experimenting until you find something that works for you.  Personally speaking, I find it rather good fun to try and turn photos into models and I do end up looking for situations where I can try more.

My Technique (using Photoshop):

1. Open the image in Photoshop.

2. Select the Gradient Tool and make sure ‘Reflected Gradient’ is selected – see screen shot below:

3. Hit ‘Q’ to enable a Quick Mask.

4. Now draw a vertical line where you want the gradient to appear – this can be hit and miss so experiment! Essentially you are trying to achieve a red area as shown below – this red area will be the section of the photo that is IN focus.

5. Hit ‘Q’ to remove the Quick Mask – this will the leave two areas of the image selected – the areas where the blur will be applied.

6. Now go to the Filter menu and select Blur then Lens Blur. I used the settings below but tweak to your heart’s content to change how your photo will look.

7. All that remains is to enhance the photo a little more if you desire – I tend to bump the brightness, contrast and saturation to give it a more  ‘Toy Town’ look.

That is the process in a nutshell. Variations of this can be found all over the net (see links at the end of this article) and there is even a site that does it all for you if you can’t face Photoshop fiddling.

Examples:
All of these photos were taken in Jan 2007 from the top (ish) of the Sky Tower in Auckland. Credit goes to my other half for a couple of the original photos.

Good luck with your efforts – if you like this article, please share it using the links below. For other tutorials and information on Tilt Shift please check out the following list..

Other Tilt Shift Resources:

Smash&Peas
MartyBugs.net
VisualPhotoGuides.com
TiltShiftMaker
Rob A’s Gimp guide

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