| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Aviary - Fake Tilt-shift Effect (redirected from Aviary)

Page history last edited by chelsea 13 years, 1 month ago

Aviary -- Phoenix -- Miniature Fake effect using the blur tool

 

A shallow depth of field can add a lot of drama to you pictures, as well as help to put the viewer's focus on a specific element of the picture. The best way to create shallow depth of field is when taking the picture by using camera settings or certain lenses (depends on the look you're trying to create). You can however use photo editing tools to blur certain parts of your picture and create artificial depth or take it to the extreme and use blurring to create that "miniature toy" look with your pictures. With speciality lenses, one can change the perspective of a photo to make large objects seem the size of toys. 

 

This look for a photo can also be mimicked or faked by blurring certain areas of a photo to create the same effect. Programs like Photoshop give you a lot of control with this kind of editing. You can use a mask layer to gradient blur a photo with exact controls. But if you don't want to shell out the dough, or don't have the patience to learn a complicated tool like Photoshop...there are more simplistic (and free) programs that will help you quickly achieve a blurred look in your photos. And it's easy!

 

Personally I enjoy using Picnik for quick-on-the-go, free, online photo editing. It doesn't have the detail that Aviary programs have but it's simple. To add blurring to a photo though I will talk about the photo editor (phoenix) in Aviary. Aviary tries to mimic a photoshop-like program, but obviously being online and free it's a simplified editor. It can do layers though, which is helpful when blurring a photo. So you don't have to worry about messing up your original, you can make a duplicate layer of it and modify that layer. Using the blur tool, setting the hardness to zero, and using a large brush size you can blur large areas of your photo to force the viewer's eye to see a depth where there was none. Side note: it's important what type of photo you choose to create this miniature effect with. Better images are ones that are taken from a higher perspective (like looking down at a street form the building), the perspective of that is perfect for blurring manipulation. Trial and error are important. Be ready to undo the blurring you've done because with the program it is easy to blur too much and make the blur lines obvious. Other tricks to make your final picture have that fake toy look is to bump up the saturation and contrast a little. 

 

BEFORE:

 

AFTER: 

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.