Have you ever had to shoot a photograph at f/11 while wishing you were shooting f/1.8? If you've ever wanted to change the depth of field of a photograph, you know that creating a depth map isn’t the easiest thing to do. Instead of struggling to create the perfect depth map in Adobe Photoshop, using selections and brushes, this video guides you down a simpler path.
In this video, Colin Smith from photoshopCAFE takes us through a sequence of steps in Photoshop to create an image with a perfectly customizable depth of field. The result is that you can select which areas of your image are in focus, out of focus, and just how much of each you want — a very powerful result.
On the way to achieving the final image, Colin shows you how to do a number of things to clean up and fine-tune the depth map. Advanced users may be accustomed to these processes, but to a novice, this is a good demonstration of this workflow from beginning to end. You learn about using the neural filter, depth maps, selection tools, levels, channels, and the Lens Blur filter.
Try this out on one of your own images and share your results in the comments.
Now THIS is very innovative and very useful. I am going to study this further. Thanks for the article.