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: 

[joesciacca]

Wow! This is the feature I've been waiting for too long without knowing it. Leica Bokeh has ever since been the "go to" for great portraiture effects. With Lens blur I can have the feeling of a great bokeh lens in the afterblur. Wonderful!

[Heather280576804acw]

It would be helpful if there were a brush tool to add or subtract from the affected areas. 

[simonsaith]

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

[ZoherT]

Helle je trouve tout ces outils excellent ! bravo pour ces évolutions ça permet encore mieux de travailler sur l'art le l'image... 

[Matt Clara]

I'm using it on a set of portraits someone shot against a wrinkled backdrop and finding it really struggles masking frizzy hair leaving visible borders, or the frizz disappears into a weird cloud of brunette, etc.  The backdrop is out of focus, but not enough to hide the wrinkles, which look busy and combine with the business of the hair to overwhelm the AI, apparently.

[flickaitlyn]

This is the tool I've been dreaming of for years. I've been manually layering and blurring for a while.

My one feedback is that for some reason when you are refining the focus/blur mode, the normal shortcuts for zooming and panning have been switched to adjusting brush size and feathering amount. I  would much rather have normal access to my canvas navigation shortcuts than shortcutting to the adjustments panel when I am refining focus and blur.  It gets difficult and frustrating to move around to different portions of the image because of this.  Other than that, a completely amazing tool! 

[Joel33465662iija]

When editing wildlife photos, the edge fur (on foxes, bears etc.) on my animals takes on a hard (not well-blended) edge that is not appealing or natural. I can't really adjust the various sliders to eliminate it, which makes it largely unusable for my furry friends images.  OIn the other hand, It has worked quite nicely on some of my portrait work, and with subjects that don't have a soft furry edge.

[rekky]

Since it can take many seconds for the initial lens blur or any changes to take effect, it would be handy for there to be an indicator that lens blur processing is in progress. It could be a solid or flashing indicator. This would probably be useful for any other processing by LR that often takes more than a second or two, even on a powerful PC/Mac.

[fabiop88236510]

I have used the new Lens Blur feature couple of times and it works great. The main reason is that I got lens with F stop such as 1.8 / 2.8, with general settings of camera in Manual. I do recognize that is a worth upgrade to use eventually in old photos.

[Geoff Bartlett]

From a quick play, it looks to work well enough. But it can produce some severe edge artifacts on high contrast edges.

[stefanom4059396]

Profondità di campo in post produzione , altra magica possibilità prima dello scatto in camera, Notevole

[russelly135]

Today when ever I utilize the Lens Blur feature in Lightroom classic, the program freezes up and I have to use task manager to close it. This problem just started occurring over the last couple of days.

[simonsaith]

See the pinned reply at the top to see if it helps.

[Valerie33479302qvhu]

I am absolutly LOVING this.  Just noticed it this morning and it has already made my editing easier.  THANK YOU  

[ikejr1440]

I've used the blur tool a few times and each time it's worked very well.  I was satisfied with the results and will report any future experients.

[bruce danz]

I love this option. Unfortunately, the subject detection isn't always accurate and there is no way to fine tune this. 

[GilmourB]

there is, use the add or subtract brush

[SDandardissue87]

I am enjoying the new lens blur feature, but the lens blur effect completely remove all noise from the blurred areas to the point where you can tell the subject still has some noise (inevitable in many situations, even after denoise is used) and the background has absolutely zero noise.  I think we need to be able to add a small amount of noise back into the blurred areas to make it really look real and believable and like it is all legitimately one photograph and not several different photos pasted together.

[JillAnne]

would be helpful to have a way to erase the effect focally with a brush. 

[GilmourB]

There is

[RavenWolf13]

Once you fully learn the Depth of the lens blur tool, this is amazing!!  One can easily add more depth to a scene or just create a general blur just on the edges for photos that do not have very much depth.  For landscape photos this really brings out the folcal depth on flatter images and to even bring out more on photos with good depth

[Annamarie28395231iyg1]

Subject focus was automatic and great, the Point/focus wasn't as precise as I wanted. Nice in the Refine section to be able to "unblur" certain parts or faces if I wanted to. The bokeh features are nice. Visualize depth and Focal range map are super helpful. Very cool feature.

[Madelyne]

I love this feature. I have been trying to these kinds of affects with clarity and focus functions, but this feature is intuitive to use and highly affective thus far. I've only tried on a few images, but so far I'm totally excited about it. 

[Clemgill]

Would it be possible to add other effects, while using the same filter ?

For example : modify selectively the constrast / exposure / low and highlights... on the blurred background versus foreground.

Thx, GC

[foxmike12]

Love it, exactly what I've been looking for. Only spent a few minutes with it so far but I'm liking what I see.