P: New AI-powered Lens Blur (Early Access) available across all surfaces.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

This post applies to Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & the Lightroom Ecosystem products.

The Lightroom team is sharing an early look for AI-powered Lens Blur–giving you the ability to apply optical blur on any image regardless of how it was taken. Lens Blur is now available to try on all Lightroom surfaces.

How does Lens Blur work?

• Lens blur applies a depth-based blur effect, similar to what can be achieved with real-world optical lenses, by using AI-generated or device-captured depth data (when available).
• Lens blur will automatically prioritize focus for the detected subject, but you can also interactively adjust the focus distance. Precise focus range tuning is also available (currently desktop only: Lightroom Desktop, Lightroom Classic, and Camera Raw).
• You can also further customize the Bokeh shapes, highlight Boost (desktop only), and make depth map refinements (desktop only).

Will my Lens Blur adjustments on one surface be synced to other surfaces? I.e. mobile to web to desktop, and vice versa?

• Yes, all edits will sync. To revert settings, you can go back to previous versions or history steps, or un-apply Lens Blur settings.

Can I add Lens Blur settings to my presets?

• No, presets and copy + paste workflows are not currently enabled for Lens Blur during Early Access.

For more information, please check out Lens Blur. 

Please give it a try and share feedback in this thread as we continually improve this feature.

Lisa Ngo: Lightroom Product Manager

Current Popular Lens Blur Feature Requests:

• Add Noise Option
• Custom Bokeh

Stop by and give them a vote if they're of interest to you!

Posted by: 

[ivma87]

Doesnt work on foreground of object. It detects it, but do not blur it.

[Cumbrian~imagery]

Hi there,

Lens blur simply doesnt work a box pops up saying "there was an unexpected error and the request cannot be made" or something like i'm at a loss 

[les26383418b46b]

Just used it for the first time on a runand gun wedding photo. So helpful. So fast. Very easy to figure out and use. Really gave me a quick option to seperate my subjects from the background. Love the control over the effect of it.

[derek32860928hcoj]

First impressions, a good start, looking forward to improvements, I'm already using it.

[dawton]

The new Lens Blur feature is cool! I like the Visualize Depth option.

Few comments:

1. Visualize Depth is deactivated with Undo (CTRL+Z)

2. Undo / Redo message on the screen tells just "Undo" / "Redo". And btw. plain "Undo" / "Redo" message is displayed for all kinds of masking (brushes, gradients etc.) while other undoed steps are described like "Undo Exposure = <value>"

[chriss79261950]

Great addition.  Depth map a little hard to grasp, more clear guidance might help.  Nice work.

[JayLauz]

The first issue I've encountered is the blur treatment around the edges. The image provided has been treated with only 20%, yet the mountain edges are not smooth. Otherwise, it has been easy to use with good results. 

[mic.kue.foto]

The masking is too bad to use it as a serious tool.

[Robert328626123xzx]

just had a quick go looks nice i like it 

[Gloria Archilla]

Used it for the first time using a Scarlet Tanager with a busy background.  Did a good job of finding the background.  Like another user mentioned, it would be nice, if either the subject or background were highlighted to indicate where the blur is being added.  I was afraid any piece of my bird with get blurred.  Great addition!!  I am attaching the photo.  Only LR adjustments applied.  I think it did a good job of choosing the background.  Thank you!!

[Melody261650125aku]

I don't want to be the wet blanket here, but this new feature only worked once when I tried to use it, after updating to the new version of Lightroom.  It worked once for me, then when I tried it on another image, it crashed the program.  I restarted, but then the Apply box is blacked/greyed out, so I can't even get to start.  I can't imagine I'm the only one this is happening to.  It may just be a new feature bug.

[dawton]

Some more details would be useful: Which OS (Windows / Mac), OS version, system memory size, GPU usage enabled in Lightroom? Which GPU and driver? Is there enough disk space?

[Rohullah3286406832vf]

I really apreciate and loved it. one thing I was hopping to see in lightroom and Adobe Camera raw is the ability to used tilt shift options and a better remove brush OR generative fill if possible. thanks for all the updates and hopefully someone reads this message and give us these options. 

[DannySantiago]

I loved Lightroom's new blur tool, but as my colleagues have said, it still needs to refine the edges, I found that even after adjusting, the edges were a little "rough", it wasn't as natural as the lens blur. The depth of field, even after adjusting, is still "rough", but depending on the photo, the tool helps a lot, but I still prefer Blur in Photoshop over Neural filters.

[awabazd]

Not sure about what the Bokeh option does.  Need a better understanding of how it works.

[Osomax]

In my case the process always ends with an error in the graphics processor that ends up being deactivated, even so, I can continue working but obviously much more slowly. The results are quite good although, as expected, the edges have some details that need to be corrected.

[simonsaith]

This looks to be a GPU driver issue. Could you share your system info via Lightroom>Help>System Info...

Follow https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html , especially Solution #4 to update to the latest GPU driver.

[mksx]

For me this is working exactly for only one image per reboot. Restarting only Lightroom did not help. Second image always returns the often mentioned error message "something went wrong, there was an unexpected errror and your request could not be completed" Windows 11, latest Nvidia drivers (537.42), no matter if GPU accelation is enabled or disabled. Works again for one image after reboot.

Results - if it is working - are quite impressive though.

[simonsaith]

This looks to be a Nvidia GPU driver issue. Could you share your system info via Lightroom>Help>System Info...

Follow https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html , especially Solution #4 to update to the latest GPU driver.

[mksx]

solution 1) makes no difference if graphics processor is enabled or disabled in the settings. still only works once after a complete reboot. solution 4) installed the latest nvidia drivers already (clean install). Nvidia control panel set to high performance processor (if gpu enabled in lightroom) or the internal graphics card if gpu disabled in settings. can't disable the internal gpu within the device manager completely within my system.

sysinfo attached. will try solution 2 & 3 in a minute

[mksx]

solution 2 is not needed as LR is stariung up correctly. solution 3 did not help.

[mksx]

@simonsaithfyi - somehow i did not reply to your reply directly as it seems

[simonsaith]

Sorry @mksx for the delay in response. Here is a workaround that you can try: 

If you encounter GPU driver issues while using ML features in LrClassic/LrD/ACR, please try to update to the latest macOS version or if you are on a Windows machine, follow https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html to update your machine to the latest GPU driver and  see if the problem resolves itself.

If the OS or the driver is not available or possible and the problem persists, then try the following workaround method as a last resort. The method provides a mechanism to allow LrDesktop/LrClassic/ACR customers to force the ML inference to always run on CPU instead of default. See details here https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/acr-gpu-faq.html#lens-blur.

[geraldseligman]

On my first 4 attempts, LR wasn't correctly identifying the subject. Rather, it was including some of the background. Is there a way, as in Masking, that I can add or subtract from the subject LR detected?

[SeanMcCormack]

The Refine tools are hidden behind a disclosure triangle by default.