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: 

[jamesf89025314]

Great addition. On a quick try, worked extremely well in two tries In a simple case, easier than neural filter version and certainly quicker than a round-trip to PS. With a tougher example the LR blur did a better job than PS's neural filter in selecting a subject from another human in the background. However, using "subject' selection left a good amount of the subject out of focus -- shoes, hair --  requiring manual brushing in. Thanks and keep up the great work. 

[0mx9]

I liked the feature but cold see no differences on the different bokeh effects--I also cannot understand what the five different graphics are supposed to show. Thanks for adding the feature!

[simonsaith]

Depending on your input, you might be able to see the effect if you zoom in more. This is a good article on bokeh effects https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/understanding-bokeh .

[robinpoppins]

Amazing results, but when i try to refine the edges and use the brush tool, lightroom freezes for some seconds, screen gets black and then turns on again with the change. i use a rtx 4070

[ineedauniquename]

Would be useufl too if  a mask could bne generated for the material that is 'in focus' so we could make adjustments isoltated to the in focus parts of the image

[Lichtsammler]

Totally agree. Sometimes I want to darken the background or something like that.

[stephand90781363]

Great tool, very nicely done!  

[3kids+2dogs]

I absolutely love the new Lens Blur feature and can see great possibilities but at the present time every time I use it, it causes Lightoom to crash and I have to restart which is very frustrating.  

[simonsaith]

Please share your system info via Lightroom>Help>System Info...  and 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

[Daniel J24241165m679]

The choice of having a button for focus and a button for blur is inconsistent with the current models for adding and subtracting an effect in which no action adds the brush and holding the option key down subtracts the brush.  Why was this done?  Why create a new precedent?  I was so used to the option key as the way to undo a brush action that I had to think thru what focus and blur really meant.  I prefer keeping to the standard use of the option key to unblur an area that was previously blurred.

[Daniel J24241165m679]

I thought that I was going to have a way to blur all or part of my image but was quite disappointed by the way blur treated a bright object over a dark background.  It doesn't really seem to defocus in this case as the affect of blur shrinks the bright object, making it smaller.  I expected it to blur the edge of a bright object so that the bright object would diffuse out into the dark while at the same time the dark would diffuse into the bright object.  Doesn't do this.  This seems to me to be a major flaw since that is not what a defocused lens would actually do.  Am I missing something?  As it is, it is not very useful to me.

[Riggsy53]

Love it for portraits with busy backgrounds! Please add "Lens Blur" to the Syncronize Settings diologue box so I can apply the same amount across a number of similar images using AI to seperate the subject from the background in each. 

[ralphh5683629]

I am a bird photographer, but I was unable to use on any photo.  Always "There was an unexpected error and your request could not be completed" popped up.  Was I expecting too much?

[simonsaith]

Please review this thread https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-new-ai-powered-lens-blur-early-access....

[DerekMorrison]

Looks great at first use. On some group portraits I had against a wall it worked really well and fast. Even getting the gaps between arms and body and legs. With a shot that included some of the pavement they were standing on it got confused and appears to have left a gap where the gradient blur should have been (between subjects). But for specific shots it will be a fantastic tool. Nice work.

[Kevin Hehl]

Well, this is really a bad 1st impression. I have a photo I wanted to try it on and the Len Blur amount slider is grayed out w/out any context of why. I've try two different photos. Don't know what I need to do to use this.

[joshuabury]

There should be an "Apply" checkbox above the blur amount slider that activates the Lens Blur feature for that photo by estimating scene depth and subject placement. The other lens blur controls, including blur amount, will be disabled until Apply is checked and depth estimation has completed.

[TannerYPhoto]

Haven't been able to get it to work so far. I get a "something went wrong message" each time.

[Guy3262078276mo]

Its cool. could use a pusher finger to move it around. it got on a few areas i couldnt figure out but wow great to do shoulder shots any where. 

[Bob Ulius]

Just tried this first time. Picked a compex image that definitely would benefit separating subject from background here, saw the popup and clicked APPLY. HARD computer crash. Nothing. No mouse, no Alt Tab, nothing at all. Waited a couple of minutes then had to do a hard boot.

Did I do something wrong?

[simonsaith]

Sorry to hear this. It is typically due to out-dated GPU driver. Try this tip:

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

[Bob Ulius]

Thanks. I will be testing this today.!

[Bob Ulius]

OK, really good progress!

I enabled GPU in LrC as "Autoi". I enabled GPU for LrC in NVIDIA control panel as auto select and the same in Windows Control Panel.

Opened an image and tried Denoise for the first time. Never had tried. And figured regardless of the result, I would learn something. And I did. Worked perfectly.

So I tried blur on same image. Worked like a charm!! But, tried another image and got this message:

Closed and reopened LrC and got the same. Tried other images, same message. So BLUR worked once, does not crash Windows any longer, BUT will not do another image!!

Cache perhaps? Something else?  Would love to get it working. Sooooo close now thanks to everyone's help and suggestions.

[Bob Ulius]

OK, really good progress!

I enabled GPU in LrC as "Autoi". I enabled GPU for LrC in NVIDIA control panel as auto select and the same in Windows Control Panel.

Opened an image and tried Denoise for the first time. Never had tried. And figured regardless of the result, I would learn something. And I did. Worked perfectly.

So I tried blur on same image. Worked like a charm!! But, tried another image and got this message:

 

Closed and reopened LrC and got the same. Tried other images, same message. So BLUR worked once, does not crash Windows any longer, BUT will not do another image!!

Cache perhaps? Something else?  Would love to get it working. Sooooo close now thanks to everyone's help and suggestions.

[Rafael29206609k0ap]

Unfortunately, I couldn’t have a good experience, I believe it’s because of my computer. Every time I try to enable blur, my computer crashes, to the point of having to turn it off. I’m using a notebook with a dedicated Nvidia 940mx video card. I’ve tried updating and reverting drivers, but the same thing happens. This is a tool that I would really like to use!