A

Anonymous

Answered

Crummy Camera Lens Blur CS6

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
January 14, 2013
19 replies
28732 views

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

Correct answer Todd_Kopriva

Hi Blindesign,

Sorry you feel that way. If you don't mind, please file a bug report/feature request as my colleague suggested earlier in post #15: Updated link (3/19): After Effects: Hot (1390 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

Thanks,

Kevin

The After Effects team does consider this to be a bug, and it's on our backlog to fix. It just hasn't risen to the top of the to-do list because we have seen very few bug reports about it, so it seems that not very many people are bothered by it. We tend to work on bugs in priority order based on severity and how many people report that they are affected.

So, yes, do submit a bug report to cast your vote.

Show previous replies

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niklasparo

Participant

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

Donavondb

Participant

Yeah I have cloud and the cc2015 version. It's still an issue.

Been using the sapphire plugin, which is better, but still not perfect.

Todd_Kopriva

Inspiring

This fix is currently in our queue for later this year.

S

SonicN2O

Participating Frequently

What other glaring bugs in CC are there that are more important than this?

S

Seb.James

Participating Frequently

Ok so I've just opened up After Effects CC 2015, and opened up a project that uses a depth pass, and an adjustment layer with the Camera Lens Blur effect applied to it, and it STILL doesn't work properly. There is still a halo around the objects that should be pin-sharp and in focus.

How has this not been fixed yet even with a new major release?!

Szalam

Community Expert

seb james wrote:
How has this not been fixed yet even with a new major release?!

I agree with your frustration on it not being fixed - I am similarly annoyed. However, CC 2015 isn't technically a major release in that it's AE version 13.5, not version 14.

Remember, to everyone in this thread, ALL of you need to file bug reports on this. The number of reports has an effect on the priority of a bug. Updated link (3/19): After Effects: Hot (1390 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

Even if you've filed before, this is a new release of AE and you can file a bug against this version too!

Robert Glotzbach

Participating Frequently

I'm honestly pretty shocked that after this long time the camera lens blur still does not work.

I filled in a bug report, but c'mon after such a long time?

Regards, Robert Glotzbach

Donavondb

Participant

I'm having the same issue. This is ridiculous. Use to work so well. I'd happily take a render hit for accuracy. Just made a bug report

E

emomobile

Participant

I'm having the same issue. I just submitted a bug report.

P

puppetnonsense

Participating Frequently

AAAAnnnnnnnd still unresolved. Look, I know there must be a ton to do at Adobe, but how could such an egregious mistake make it through quality control? Is there literally no one that tests new effects when they are implemented? I somehow doubt it, which leads me to believe that this was a known issue when the new effect was added. I could be wrong, but either way, for something as essential as using a depth map for DOF effects, this is unacceptable, especially for a software that touts itself as being a professional level compositing application.

I have filled a bug report, but if its honestly been this long, what chances are there that this will be resolved anytime soon? It's sure not going to help me finish the project I'm working on currently.

It seems like every other day I need to buy this plugin or that plugin to get the functionality I need from AE. I left Nuke due to the high cost, but now I'm beginning to understand that you get what you pay for.

To the poor individuals who have to read all of our complaints, I thank you. I know you aren't responsible.

Tim Kurkoski

Adobe Employee

Hi puppetnonsense,

We are looking at making improvements to the Camera Lens Blur effect for a near-term release. Right now I can't promise that this will definitely happen, or when such a release would be available. I can say that the work is high on our priorities list.

When we introduced Camera Lens Blur in After Effects CS5.5, it solved many issues with performance compared to the old Lens Blur effect, as well as adding new capabilities. It also introduced this problem with overlapping depths. We have investigated this and understand the problem; the solution requires a complex re-working of the algorithm that Camera Lens Blur currently uses. The amount of time it will take to engineer this, and the fact that the existing results are good for cases where overlapping depths do not occur, have been contributing factors towards us not yet choosing to make this change.

Now that the issue is higher on our priority list, there's a good chance the work will get done soon.

Please do continue filing bugs for issues that you see in After Effects. We read all of them and the data we get helps us to prioritize improvements to After Effects.

S

staus_me

Participant

So now we're in AE CC 2014 and I see absolutely no difference to this essential feature!

How come this is not more important? I literally use this effect on every single project where I import 3D sequences and there are no such cases where "overlapping depths do not occur". The one reason I want to use this tool is because I have overlapping depths from a depth map. If there wasn't any overlap I wouldn't need this tool. I could simply use another simpler blur effect and mask the desired area and I'd be ok with it. With depth maps that's not possible, though, so a tool like this is essential!!

Either fix it or remove it. This tools' been sitting in the effects box for generations without fulfilling its purpose

C

cgb777

Participant

Has there been any updates on fixing this problem in CS6?

R

reel2riehl

Participant

I was able to import the blur effect from CS5 into the plugins folder for CS6. I took away the current pluging for "lens blur" and this worked. store your CS6 plugin somewhere else for use in the future. However when I open After Effects both "camera lens blur" and "lens blur" show up in my effects panel. Not sure why they are both there, but they both work!

-seth

WShawn

Known Participant

Okay, 71 views in 24 hours and no replies.

How about this? I see this forum is frequented by Adobe employees. Would Todd or Aldofo care to take two minutes, open the CS 6 AE project I posted, and confirm that the Camera Lens Blur plugin is behaving as designed?

Thank you.

Shawn Marshall

Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Hi Shawn,

It is behaving as designed. You might try adjusting the Blur Focal Distance (Blur Map) and the Blur Radius for better results. The Camera Lens Blur effect is much more accurate than the original one, though you certainly do need to adjust parameters according to the particular shot.

See what Ash Beck says about the Camera Lens blur effect at 2:22 in this video: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/ae-me/ae-me-ash-beck/

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio

WShawn

Known Participant

Thanks for the reply, Kevin.

No doubt, this new version is faster and does a nice job simulating bokeh effects which probably looked nice in Spider-man. That said, it's pretty much useless for my work.

Did you have an opportunity to check my project file? I can find no combination of settings that duplicates the behavior of the old Lens Blur effect. A Blur Radius of anything but zero creates the blurry halo around my foreground element; the larger the radius, the bigger the halo. And, obviously, there is no DOF effect if the radius is zero.

Adjusting the Blur Focal Distance racks the blur. Cool. But that parameter does nothing to mitigate the blurry halo.

The old Lens Blur effect did it correctly. The Frishluft DOF plugin does it correctly. Am I going to have to spend $200 on a third-party plugin to retain this functionality going into the future? At what point will the old Lens Blur become incompatible with After Effects?

Cheers.

Shawn Marshall

Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

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