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: 

[Ben5E5B]

Very beautiful and accurate effect, thanks.

[Kristin33486985c0zk]

I dig it, excellent addition! 

[dr. markf55851565]

Will Lens Blur eventually be able to Auto Sync in LrC?

[MazzM]

on first go-round I like that it's useful as gentle boost to something preexisting

[johanl82229690]

Great feature. I love it. It would be nice if you could add or subtract from the selection, because I've had a few instances where only half an ear is selected, so then the other half is blurred with the background.

[Simon S Chen]

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

[88k5F8F]

lens blur now  only for one by one photo click, if it can sync manys , will be more more save time

[oliver33522169hhtn]

hey there,

I tested the new function with a photo of me and my girlfriend. I am impressed with how well the new AI works. A note: In the photo there is a small gap between me and my girlfriend, who didn't recognize, that could be improved.

Thanks

[Simon S Chen]

You can use the refine tool to fix up the gap. Expand the Refine collapsible widget in the lens blur UI to play with the focus/blur brush. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[gerard schel]

Great feature, I am impressed with how well the new AI works.

[robertkaplanphotography]

I am currently running LrC and PS on a Windows 10 PC with 32GB RAM and no discrete graphics card. Lens Blur is prone to blackouts and slow rendering. If a graphics card would improve performance, can any one suggest a mid-range card (non-gaming) ?  I think I once read that Adobe recommends a card that runs at least 2000 OPS.

[Marek32840225fik2]

I bought a RTX2060 - 12 GB for that purpose, AI Denoise and AI Lens Blur
now run smoothly. I read that a RTX (or RX) Card is recommended because of
the Tensor Cores, that are needed for optimal AI processing.

[robertkaplanphotography]

Thanks for your reply. is that an nVidia card?

[Marek32840225fik2]

yes, Geforce RTX 2060, I bought that one because of my PSU unit (My PSU
only rated for 500 W, and all the other RTX cards need more than 500 W (i
didn't want to buy a new PSU), but I think that newer RTX cards (30xx or
40xx) have even better performance, although i read the RTX 3050 is not so
great). I think in my case the AI Denoise of a 36 MP photo takes around
30 seconds, without the GPU it took 4 minutes.

[robertkaplanphotography]

I have the same issue. I have a 500W PSU and would rather not install a new one although I see they’re not that expensive $75 for 750w. But I’m not confident I can install it myself so add installation.

I’ll look for the card you bought. Denoise AI takes a ridiculous amount of time currently so I continue to use Topaz which runs much faster.  Thanks again

[Simon S Chen]

If your GPU is performant, you can try the pinned reply at the top. If your GPU is weak, try the CPU override workaround. Your 32GB RAM helps in this case.

[rogerr19084174]

Je suis en phase de découverte. Premier essai. Déjà satisfait.

[Vell28183731trfp]

Hi, I would like to see Les Blur added to the Synchronize Settings and Create Preset options, will be available in later itterations?

[Simon S Chen]

Yes.

[Bilal33532170bvu0]

definitely like using it, need someway of knowing which images have it.

[MarkJansen]

"Lens blur" offers many possibilities. I quickly started using it. However, I notice a problem as soon as I apply "lens blur".
The "Details" panel and the options "Radius", "Details", "Mask" in combination with the Alt key (black/white visualisation) no longer works or is painfully slow when appluing "lens blur".
When I no longer apply "lens blur", the "Details" panel works properly again.
I attached a screenshot of the details panel I was talking about.

[Simon S Chen]

The "Details" panel and the options "Radius", "Details", "Mask" in combination with the Alt key works for me with lens blur applied..

Please share your system info. Lightroom>Help>System Info... The first use of lens blur after a fresh install could be slow because the GPU would need to do some prep work to make the subsequent runs faster.

[MarkJansen]

Do you mean by "fresh install" re-installing Lightroom Classic? I just do updates using Creative Cloud.

Appended I've added the system info.

[lucasfarizatto]

They could add a button to save the black and white depth mask to be able to apply it to other masks in Photoshop

[Studio N]

This is a very cool feature! Would love some lens-specific blurs as well as a radial blur feature!