# How could I unsharpen special areas?



## foyer (Dec 9, 2020)

How could I unsharpen (very clearly) special areas? I want to get the look of a miniature model, e.g. of a street, houses, etc.


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## clee01l (Dec 9, 2020)

One place would be in the camera.   Use a large aperture setting on a lens with a large  aperture (f/1.1-f/1.8)
In Lightroom, use the Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT)  Set the sharpness to negative -100 and brush un the area that you want to blur.
In Photoshop, use one of the Blur filters


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## BobMc (Dec 9, 2020)

The Develop module Brush has a slider for sharpening. The slider is centered, move it to the right to increase and to the left to decrease sharping. You may apply more than one layer to accomplish the desired effect. Remember to used feathering on the brush so edges are not too harsh.


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## foyer (Dec 9, 2020)

Sorry, I cannot find that  Adjustment Tool (TAT). Where is it? In the part "Detail" on the right panel I have "Sharpening". That is all I can find.



> You may apply more than one layer to accomplish the desired effect


So to set more than one spot at the same place?


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## clee01l (Dec 9, 2020)

foyer said:


> Sorry, I cannot find that  Adjustment Tool (TAT). Where is it? In the part "Detail" on the right panel I have "Sharpening". That is all I can find.
> 
> 
> So to set more than one spot at the same place?


Just above the Basic Develop panel are a series of button icons The one on the right looks like a wand with a brush on the end,  This is the TAT.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 9, 2020)

Cletus, you mean the Adjustment Brush. The TAT is something else. That is the possibility to change colors in HSL (and some other panels) by dragging over the image. You activate it by clicking on the small circle in the upper left corner of that panel.


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## clee01l (Dec 9, 2020)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Cletus, you mean the Adjustment Brush. The TAT is something else. That is the possibility to change colors in HSL (and some other panels) by dragging over the image. You activate it by clicking on the small circle in the upper left corner of that panel.



Thanks for the clarification...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## foyer (Dec 9, 2020)

Ah yes, the brush BobMc mentioned, I assume. Thank you.


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## Conrad Chavez (Dec 9, 2020)

foyer said:


> I want to get the look of a miniature model, e.g. of a street, houses, etc.



That sounds like a tilt-shift lens type of effect, which in most apps is simulated by blurring the top and bottom of a frame. In Lightroom Classic, the fastest way to fake this is to lay down two Graduated Filters with settings like those suggested above. In the animation below, you can see how this can be set up. It starts with a Before/After comparison, then shows you the two graduated filters and their masks. I erased part of the top Graduated Filter mask to let the tower stay sharp.





The higher the pixel dimensions of the image, the less of an effect you get. In the frames where my local adjustments are selected you can see that Texture, Clarity, and Sharpness are all jammed down to the lowest possible values but the image doesn’t get blurred that much. You can stack local adjustments to increase the effect. Or, if you don’t mind bringing it into Photoshop, you can choose Filter > Blur Gallery > Tilt-Shift where you get a lot more options and control over the amount and type of blur, because that filter is made specifically for this effect.


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## foyer (Dec 9, 2020)

Thank you very much for that great demonstration!

This effect arises when using a tilt-shift lens? I thought it would occur just when using taking photos from close distance, e.g. 30, 60 cm, so e.g. when shooting model train or such.



> I erased part of the top Graduated Filter mask to let the tower stay sharp.


I do not understand how you do that, how can one erase a part of the Graduated Filter?



> Texture, Clarity, and Sharpness are all jammed down to the lowest possible values but the image doesn’t get blurred that much.


And just applying more than one layer of the Graduated Filter like BobMc said (for using the brush at least)? That does not work?

I do not use / have any idea of Photoshop unfortunately, but that sounds good, of course.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 9, 2020)

I use the same method as Conrad, just using a radial filter and mainly relying on negative Texture. If I want to strengthen the effect, I'll duplicate it.


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## Conrad Chavez (Dec 9, 2020)

foyer said:


> This effect arises when using a tilt-shift lens? I thought it would occur just when using taking photos from close distance, e.g. 30, 60 cm, so e.g. when shooting model train or such.


Yes, you are right. You do get shallower depth of field when the camera-to-subject distance is very short, like holding your camera 3 inches over a model train set. But it may be impossible to get shallow depth of field in camera when:

It’s a large view like a stadium or a city view, where you can't possibly get close enough for shallow depth of field, because you must be hundreds of feet away from the focal point to get the whole view in.
The photo was already shot as a normal photo, and it’s not possible or too late to redo it using a closer subject distance, wider aperture, or longer focal length.
For the first one, using a tilt-shift camera to tilt the focal plane can blur everything except a slice of the image.
For the second one, you have to do it in software.



foyer said:


> I do not understand how you do that, how can one erase a part of the Graduated Filter?


When you use any local adjustment tool (Radial Filter, Graduated Filter, Adjustment Brush), you’re actually applying an effect through a default mask. If you want to alter any of them, you use the Brush option of that tool to control where the mask applies. When the Brush option is set to Erase mode as shown below, you add to the mask, suppressing the effect of the filter. You might not see the red Adjustment Mask Overlay by default, but if it helps you see the mask, choose Tools > Adjustment Mask Overlay > Hide/Show Overlay (or press the letter O key). I erased the effect of the Graduated Filter over the tower so that it would not be affected by the filter’s settings.

This means when you need a custom mask shape, you can either paint it from scratch with the Adjustment Brush, or drop a Radial or Graduated Filter and just erase the bits you don’t need…whichever is faster for you.







foyer said:


> And just applying more than one layer of the Graduated Filter like BobMc said (for using the brush at least)? That does not work?


Yes, that totally works. And it’s easy. Just right-click the filter’s pin on the image, choose Duplicate from the context menu that appears, and a copy of that instance with the same settings will be added at the same position. This is what I meant when I mentioned that you could “stack” the effects, but I probably shouldn’t have used the word “stack” because that has a different meaning in Lightroom Classic.


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## foyer (Dec 9, 2020)

> If I want to strengthen the effect, I'll duplicate it.


It seems by duplicating or even more layers there does not seem any effect than just having one layer.

Thank you very much for the explanations, screenshots, link (very good examples), yes, understood everything, got everything done, working fine now.



> Just right-click the filter’s pin on the image, choose Duplicate from the context menu that appears, and a copy of that instance with the same settings will be added at the same position. This is what I meant when I mentioned that you could “stack” the effects, but I probably shouldn’t have used the word “stack” because that has a different meaning in Lightroom Classic.



No no, I understood "stack" like you meant it, but I just dragged new Graduated Filter over each other (instead of simply copying by right clicking the pin, didn't know that option) and could not see an effect (more unsharpness) from the layers I put over the first one so I thought it would not work.

Many thanks again!


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## johnbeardy (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> It seems by duplicating or even more layers there does not seem any effect than just having one layer.



It depends on the adjustment. Some do top out after a certain value, so I think both Clarity and Texture stops being applied after 400.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> This effect arises when using a tilt-shift lens? I thought it would occur just when using taking photos from close distance, e.g. 30, 60 cm, so e.g. when shooting model train or such.


It's an effect for making the image _look_ like it's a model. With a real tilt/shift lens you can achieve this by tilting 'the wrong way'. Normally, if you want to increase the DOF, you tilt the top of the lens forward. To create this effect, you do the opposite: you tilt the bottom forward. Here's an example done with a real tilt/shift lens.


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## foyer (Dec 10, 2020)

Many thanks for the example. So with a  tilt/shift lens you can put the DOF (almost) whereever you want.

I am wondering why at all human beings feel they look at a model only because of the unsharp areas. Where do such viewing habits / feeling come from?


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> Many thanks for the example. So with a  tilt/shift lens you can put the DOF (almost) whereever you want.


It’s a bit more complicated than that. You can change the DOF, so that the plane of sharpness is no longer parallel to the sensor, but at an angle. The result is that the DOF becomes a wedge.





foyer said:


> I am wondering why at all human beings feel they look at a model only because of the unsharp areas. Where do such viewing habits / feeling come from?


Because a model has a very shallow DOF, while a scene like I posted will not. That means that if that scene has such a shallow DOF after all, your brain says “this must be something small, that I am looking at from a short distance”.


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## foyer (Dec 10, 2020)

Looks indeed a bit more complicated (the camera, and as if only usable with a tripod, not only to keep the DOP where one wants it to have). Many thanks for the image.



> That means that if that scene has such a shallow DOF after all, your brain says “this must be something small, that I am looking at from a short distance”.


Yes, but why does the brain say that as we gernally respectively young people might never have seen a photo of a model. So they just even do not know how it looks like.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> Yes, but why does the brain say that as we gernally respectively young people might never have seen a photo of a model. So they just even do not know how it looks like.


It has nothing to do with a photo. That is also how the eye sees it. Move your head close to an object. Focus on it. Try looking at the background without focussing on it. The background will be unsharp.


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## foyer (Dec 10, 2020)

I am absolutely not able to let the effect arise. It only works when I look at a photo being edited that way. May be it works unconsciously somehow.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> I am absolutely not able to let the effect arise. It only works when I look at a photo being edited that way. May be it works unconsciously somehow.


How did you try? You would have to look at a real miniature world from quite a short distance, so a really small one.


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## foyer (Dec 10, 2020)

Just looked at a few little things here, I do not have any model. When I look from a short distance the entire forground is unsharp. So I cannot imagine there might be a way to let me see anything the same way I can see it on such photo.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 10, 2020)

foyer said:


> Just looked at a few little things here, I do not have any model. When I look from a short distance the entire forground is unsharp. So I cannot imagine there might be a way to let me see anything the same way I can see it on such photo.


Maybe it’s not exactly the same way, but it’s enough to make your brain conclude that this must be a miniature world, not the real world.


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## foyer (Dec 10, 2020)

Yes, it is a bit different. But I cannot rember to ever have feeled that kind of look as a child when I looked at a neighbours modelodel railway.


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