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: 

[SeanMcCormack]

Moved to Lightroom Ecosystem Discussions. 

[Joerg33245622u2jp]

Beim Export eines Fotos im HEIC Format nach JPG, bei dem Objekte mit dem Radiergummi entfernt worden und die neue Funktion Objektivunschärfe verwendet wurde, bilden die entfernten Objekte schwarze Schatten. Bei Entfernung der Objekte mit dem Pflaster tritt dieses Problem nicht auf.

[Simon S Chen]

Could you zip up the HEIC file with the settings and share? A screen capture would be helpful. Did you turn on the HDR edit mode? Did you apply the lens blur after the object is erased or before? If you apply the lens blur before the object is erased, you might want to experiment to toggle the lens blur "Apply" off and on gain so that the lens blur is aware that you erased the object and will force the depth map to be estimated again.

[pwk121]

Lens Blur is fantastic....love it what a wonderful feature to add...hooray

[Christina33262785mbuw]

Loving this feature, however I think it definitely needs more ability to refine the blur to the smallest pixels.  Being able to select pixels more precisely would be great.  However loving playing around with.  This will be a feature I will use A LOT!  Would also like to see on filmstrip which photos Lens Blur was applied to.

[Christina33262785mbuw]

Loving this feature.  It is something I will be using A LOT!  I would however like a way to select specific pixels to blur more than just the circle selctor.  Would like to option to have the ability to be more refined.  Would also like to see which photos Len Blur is applied to on filmstrip for quick referencing.  Over all really fun playing with it.

[J.P. Owens]

I have 2 requests.... My workflow includes creating a DNG or TIFF copy of the RAW original. I then auto-sync my edits made to both. Sometimes there are multiple files in a sequence that are included in the syncronized edit. Request #1 is to allow auto sync for lens blur.  The next request #2 is to allow the use of the masking tool to add, subtract or intersect with the lens blur effect... basically add it to the masking tools.

[Ivy33270300vcze]

FINALLYYYYYY! I try and attempt these fixes using the lens correction blur and (obviously) can never quite achieve what I'm hoping for. I use the lightroom classic and cant wait for this to go into full user mode!

[Waymarsh]

Neat but--

I had some horizontal bars across the photo that were in the foreground, but the program thought they were in the background, and blurred them.

I tried to use the Refine tools, but couldn't invest the time. The Refine tools should work exactly like the Object tools, with brush and selector, and I should be able to see where the refinements are, with an icon, and delete them, instead of undoing my way out. Thanks.

[robing17958293]

when I tried to add lens blur to a picture of a child on a rope played ground, sections of the rope that were still in focus disappeared . . . or became very blurry when the rope immediately adjacent remained in focus.

[Simon S Chen]

Try use the Refine tool. Expand the Refine collapsible widget in the lens blur UI to play with the focus/blur brush. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[daniellef3082181]

Please make this sync like the other masks

[DD332749211gha]

Lens blur works well

[Chester the Lr Bug Karen]

Please allow us to generate the depth maps beforehand for a batch of images as a background task, doing it one by one and waiting for it to generate per image is extremely time consuming.

[johnrellis]

@Chester the Lr Bug Karen, "Please allow us to generate the depth maps beforehand for a batch of images as a background task, doing it one by one and waiting for it to generate per image is extremely time consuming."

I'm sure that support for Copy/Sync/Auto Sync of Lens Blur will be added in future releases. While waiting, you can use the Copy Settings plugin to enable or disable lens blur on multiple selected photos at once and do something else while Update AI Settings is running. (Lens Blur, like Denoise, is very compute-intensive.)

[delenb1672758]

I have been trying the blur tool on somewhat less simple subjects and cannot get an accurate break on certain areas of the subject. The current early release model seems to be set up sort of like luminance with the slider for depth. If the blur were in the presence section of basic as a slider (like texture and clarity) and the blur was applied to the masked background, then it would be perfect. You could even break the background in to background 1 and background 2, etc. I can achieve close to the same effect using the t and c sliders and do so on practically all of my images to verying degrees. Not knowing the behind the scenes manner these effects are coded, I have no idea of course if this suggested alternative approach is realistic.

[Chester the Lr Bug Karen]

The + button to add new refinement regions for the depth map sometimes disappears after clicking, and there's no way to get it back....

[talrez_]

It gives portret mode on ipone. im not a fan..

[Trevor33283919flg1]

I dont know if it would be possible to tweak the blur using a brush like you can with a mask but that would be handy to me, a few times the ai has recognised part of the subjec as background and vice versa. if i could take away or add that would be amazing. Overall though im loving this feature!!! well done Adobe 🙂

[delenb1672758]

In my earl;ier reply, I had not discovered the "refine" section, so it appears you have already addressed my problem. I will work with the refine section to see if I can narrow my focus / blur boundries. Thank you!

[Trevor33283919flg1]

Wow!! How did I miss that?? Thank you so much 🙂

[GraphiCoreOne]

If we enable the Lens Blur function, a Depth map is created. Why, in this case, can’t you use this depth map in the Mask -> Range -> Depth Range section?

[johnrellis]

@GraphiCoreOne, "If we enable the Lens Blur function, a Depth map is created. Why, in this case, can’t you use this depth map in the Mask -> Range -> Depth Range section?"

Lens Blur does use a camera-produced depth map, according to the Adobe Help. But see the discussion here. 

Oops, I misunderstood your question, which is a good one.

[Diuna]

Lens Blur. A very helpful tool, I am very satisfied

[rica94814214]

I'm liking the lens blur alot. Just have one suggestion. The initial mask calculation for the focus mask should be more generous. Since the task is to sharpen. I am finding some objects that are missing brighter sections that are contained within surrounding darker parts of the masked object. Its fixable with the adjustment, but since that task is to sharpen seems it would do no harm to strenthen the calculation to include more than less. I can see that this might not work on a busy photo with lots of overlapping focus/blur sections. But for isolated objects like flying birds in a blue sky, It would work better. first image is after I tweeked the mask of each bird and the second is as it was originally calculated.