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: 

[Katie2193713265ih]

So far this is an amazing feature and tool! I have been wanting a way to blur certain things in my photos! I am currently trying it out and the only suggestion I have so far is maybe having it so you can create a mask of certain objects or people and just click "blur" and it will blur the selected objects/people in that mask. Because some of my sports photos have more than the main player in focus but I would like to blur them and creating that mask and being able to do it with a couple clicks would be awesome!

[Ken313007498ppk]

Love the concept and the versitility of the new image blur feature in Lightroom. The ammount of lens blur and distances I can choose where the blur begins and how gradual I want it is great.  Having said that, I feel that the algorythms that figure out all the distances of the image elements of a busy picture is just not up to par yet.  Some items that are closer in my pics are blurred out more than further objects in my pics.  I tried using the brush tools to add the extra blur to areas that needed it unsuccesfully.  For a first start its not horrible but it needs work.  

[bobbyboy707]

First time using it absolutely love it. Very easy to use made the picture even better after photoshopping some motion blur. The Blur tool in Lightroom made it stand out and look more of a realistic motion blur.

[TG334112198zax]

This is a very good feature . But i can't sync the lense blur feature. hope you can send a update for it . which will make my work flow fast and easy.

[defaultdpq1kmeirl8q]

je ne sais ps si un reglage ponctuel (pinceau ?)du flou peut etre utilisé afin d affiner le flou

[simonsaith]

Oui. Développez le widget pliable Affiner dans l’interface utilisateur du flou d’objectif pour jouer avec le pinceau de mise au point/flou. Découvrez la jolie vidéo tutorielle de Julieanne.

[miked750]

I like the AI Lens Blur.  So far so good.  No problem on the iMAC running with Ventura.  I also would like to see an indication on which photo has the Blur.  I just began using it so if I encounter any problem I'll report it.  Nice feature.  Like the HDR as well. 

[lisam56084952]

Great potential. I love being able to blur the background. So far I see a problem with fur/hair not being integrated nicely into the blur giving it a cut out look. I would have liked to see a brush to soften the edges to avoid this.

[simonsaith]

There is one. Expand the Refine collapsible widget in the lens blur UI to play with the focus/blur brush. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[betsym9277220]

I have used it a couple of times, and by no means understanding all of the details, but I just applied it to my image of a flock of birds flying over water and thought the blur was great, but looked closer and realized half of the birds had lost their beaks. I will keep playing and assume I just need to find the right focal range or something.

[mmontibert]

So nice! Very happy to use that new settings. I can play with my already existing blur to densify it. 
Just some elements are not (in realitty) on the same plan, but Lr see them on the same plan (see the orange tree on my pic). Maybe a brush for quick retouch can be useful to get more precise settings, but I love it!

[JD27266218lz0i]

Can add a "feather edge" feature when adding a lot of blur?

[danyellec62071695]

I strongly wish there was a brush tool for this lens.  More times than many, when gathering data and adding the bokeh behind the assumed subject, it will add more subjects...that aren't meant to be subjects.  The bokeh is beautiful though, and love the "boost" slider, but I will also add that again like many times than most I find myself adjusting the slider to a very low amount because it will OVER blur the edge lines of my subject to look fake.

[simonsaith]

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

[Rízia Vieira Fotos]

Só da erro essa função de desfoque de lente, nunca de certo pelo PC só pleo celular 

[simonsaith]

Consulte a resposta fixada no topo.

[arthury1933942]

Quite an amazing feature. So far, I like it very much and I no complaints so far.

[Esa Juan Uno]

Shopping trolleys caused difficulties, the area visible behind the shopping trolleys is not blurred.

[ahspares]

Quite intuitive and easy to use. The focus brush is a great feature to refine parts of the image that should or shouldn't be in focus, although it would be better if the applied brush strokes remain when re-opening the feature to edit.

[Mariam Hovhannesyan]

I didn't have any problems, it's great ❤️ I love it

[cjs-nh]

Lens Blur works well for most photos, however, when the background is cluttered, it struggles to find the subject.  I would like to see the ability to apply Lens Blur to a Background Mask.  The Masking tools can then be used to refine the where in the image the blur is applied.  In the case of this photo, the Flyer and the people behind the Flyer's base.

 

 

to isolate the subject.   

[jjaylad]

Try selecting your focus point right in the centerline of the girls in that
pyramid. That might help.

[delenb1672758]

I think this is a good concept and have tried it on several pictures. It works best on less intricate pictures. Block subjects with deep backgrounds for instance. Adjusting the masking is slow on my machince (i7 Windoes with GTX, all drivers updated) and not 100% effective on the edges. In many cases, I get equal or better results using negative texture and clarity on intricate images.

As I mentioned in my first post, I feel like it would be much better if we could mask first (select subject or focus object) then apply the algorithm to the 1. Foreground (if any) and the 2. Background (if any). My approach to blur is usually 4 items, subject, near subject, foreground and background. It is usually very easy to mask these separately, and something I may do for brightness or color correction anyway. If I could then apply the blur as desired to these masks, it would make this much more useable and efficient for me.

As for masks in general, will we ever be able to add or subtract a named mask in a newly created mask? Currently the inverse of a mask is not 100% accurate, and the combination of object and brush adjustments in the initial seems to affect the inverse.

I appreciate the work involved to develop this new feature. Keep up the good work!

[karahg63548188]

I am LOVING this feature 🙂 adds that extra magic! please bring this to the new update 

[Dr J Tech]

I think it is a great addition to Lightroom.  I have used it on a number of images I shot while covering SEMA and the results are very effective and similar to what would have been achieved using a narrow field of focus.