Lens Blur (Early Access) in Lightroom Classic

With the help of artificial intelligence, Lightroom Classic can automatically generate a synthetic depth map based on the content of an image, enabling photographers to change the focus plane and quickly create a “narrow” or “shallow” depth of field in an image. The video below demonstrates how to use Lens Blur, apply a Bokah effect, visualize and customize the Depth Map, and use the Refinement brush.

Here are my favorite shortcuts for Lens Blur.

• Tap (or hold) the left/right bracket key to decrease/increase Refinement brush size. Add the Shift key to decrease/increase the Feather amount.
• Flow controls the speed at which adjustment is applied. Tap a numeric key to add the percentage of the tapped number: 1 = 10%, 2= 20% etc. and 0 = 100%. Tapping two numbers quickly will give you that exact amount: 5 + 4 = 54%.
• When painting with the Refinement brush, hold Option (Mac ) | Alt (Win) to toggle from between “adding to” and “subtracting from” the refinement area.
• Shift constrains the Refinement brush to a horizontal or vertical line. Or, click once with the brush, then hold the Shift key and click again and Lightroom Classic will connect the two paint strokes with a straight line.
• To reset the Focal Range to the automatically generated depth map, double click anywhere in the Focal Range bar or select the Subject Focus Icon.

Note: this version of Lens Blur is labeled as “Early Access”. Because it can  provide very good results with a well defined subject, foreground, and background, the team didn’t want to hold the feature back. But if the Lens Blur results aren’t working at the level that you expect it to, please use the feedback option in the Lens Blur panel to share your comments as the team continues to improve the AI and machine learning model for Lens Blur.

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