Crummy Camera Lens Blur CS6

[Guest]

The Camera Lens Blur effect that came with AE CS 5.5 and CS 6 doesn't look nearly as good as the old Lens Blur effect that came with CS 5; it's pretty much unusable for my purposes. Foreground elements that should be sharp render sharp, but with a blurry halo around them. The old Camera Lens blur does not exhibit this behavior, nor the Frischluft Depth of Field plugin.

Here's an image showing the depth map and how the three plugins render it:

CameraLensBlur.png

The images are composited from 16-bit PNGs rendered out of Cinema 4D. There's a nasty halo visible around the foreground particle in the upper left in the CS6 Camera Lens Blur version. I saved the old Lens Blur effect as a preset out of a CS5 project and am, fortunately, still able to use that approach in CS6 since the "improved" version of the plugin looks pretty crummy (I skipped AE CS5.5). As a test I installed the demo of Frishluft's Lenscare plugins, and after inverting the depth buffer in the plugin I got a good result.

The "new" Camera Lens Blur is acting like the Compound Blur effect. Foreground elements appear sharp but with a blurry halo since the entire "background" is being blurred, creating a blurred ghost of the foreground element. The old Lens Blur effect was very slow, but it did work.

Anyone know how to make this new "improved" Camera Lens Blur look like the other plugins?  I've posted a zipped file with the image and depth map in a small AE CS6 project here if anyone here would care to check my settings.  Maybe I'm missing somthing.

CameraBlurs folder.zip

Thank you.

Shawn Marshall

Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Szalam,

I know, but they're not necessarily watching this thread. Besides, they can't track forum threads. Bug reports/feature requests are officially tracked by Adobe.

Specific bug reports and feature requests go directly to the product team. So the best way to give feedback to the After Effects team. If you only make a complaint or comment on the forum here, it could potentially get rolled into some of the data I report, but there is no guarantee they will hear your voice as they would with a bug report.

One thing I do know. This is the main thread that speaks about Camera Lens Blur quality. If everyone on this thread make a bug report, it would make a big difference.

On behalf of Adobe, I do apologize that this issue has gone on so long.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Dean Wright]

Just submitted another bug report. If you read this, submit one now. It takes 30s. This needs to get sorted. First flagged in 2013 and officially recognised as a bug in 2014 and yet still broken in 2017!? This is just shameful from the AE team.

Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[Seb.James]

Its been over 4 1/2 years since this was first reported, you're fully aware of the problem (we shouldn't have to keep reporting bugs), yet its still broken.

When can we expect it to be fixed? It's gone on long enough now!

[Donavondb]

Yeah this effect hasn't worked properly since like CS6. Ridiculous. It really is fundamentally needed for any 3d workflow

[WShawn]

At this point I'm guessing Frischluft is slipping some money to an Adobe developer under the table to make sure the built-in plugin NEVER gets fixed.

[Szalam]

Seb.James  wrote

Its been over 4 1/2 years since this was first reported, you're fully aware of the problem (we shouldn't have to keep reporting bugs), yet its still broken.

When can we expect it to be fixed? It's gone on long enough now!

While I agree that it should be fixed by now, you should still keep filing bugs (and getting everyone you know who's affected to file them too). If they only get bug reports from one or two folks, that's not going to make management assign resources to something. It takes person-hours to fix problems and there are a finite amount of those. Every time AE releases an update, all of us should file a bug report about this until it gets fixed.

[Seb.James]

I see your point, but when Adobe has already said it's noted the problem, we shouldn't have to keep prodding them like this for 5 years.

[niklasparo]

Yes, please fix the camera lens blur halo bug, thank you.

[SonicN2O]

This question has not been "answered". I think the answer is that Adobe seems content with having major software bugs because they think they can get away with it.

[Guest]

Still no fix then?!

[Cliffordli]

This is, 2016 12 25

The problem still appear in CC 2017...

[Szalam]

Cliffordli wrote:

This is, 2016 12 25

The problem still appear in CC 2017...

Yes.

File more feature requests!

[the_dudes]

This question has not yet really been answered.

[Guest]

Yep, still! It's still a problem in the latest After Effects. How the hell has this not been sorted yet... Adobe, just buy out the Friscluft plug in and let us have proper depth control already...

[danry86]

2018 here still not fixed. Bug report sent.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks Danry86,

Sorry for this issue. Thanks for filing.

Regards,
Kevin

[Guest]

That's it Kevin, file it away somewhere with the rest of the bug reports for this, we might get it fixed by about 2030.

Or is that a bit too soon?

[Kevin-Monahan]

That's it Kevin, file it away somewhere with the rest of the bug reports for this, we might get it fixed by about 2030.

Or is that a bit too soon?

I'm not a dev. I do support and can only address troubleshooting current problems.

If you have complaints about the software, like a bug report or a feature request, please do so here: Updated link (3/19): After Effects: Hot (1390 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

I noticed that no one has actually filed this bug on the User Voice site yet. Can someone get that going and I'll start by upvoting along with you.

Thanks,
Kevin

[staus_me]

I remember joining this lovely conversation in 2014, thinking I was late to the party... seems I was 4 years ahead of schedule. It's such a pleasure to receive email updates and know the community here is well. I don't look forward to the day where suddenly this issue is resolved and we lose the only thing that binds us together. Thanks Adobe for making this possible

[Guest]

Its been fun, hasn't it!

On top of this, every bloody year (for the past 5) I've been asking to get the Frischluft Lenscare plug-in for After Effects. Which one I'll get first, I don't know.

[marco_py]

I've literally had this issue since 2014, 5 years

[Five Stone Productions]

Please resolve this issue. It's been 5 years. We've needed this to work at our studio so many times now. Very frustrating.

[the_dudes]

Grab the depth blur from withing this lenscare packet here: https://www.frischluft.com/lenscare/

It's been creating way better depth blur since many years.

[Seb.James]

I've given up on Adobe fixing the issue, it's never going to happen. I did however find a decent, cheaper, alternative to the Frischluft one. Have a look on AeScripts for Fast Bokeh, the free version works correctly and the fairly cheap Pro version is great! 

[Seb.James]

Any news on a fix for this yet, Adobe? 7 years is a LONG, LONG time for a bug not to be fixed.