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: 

[Jordan Barling]

Been using the tool recently, definitely impressed with it, however as expected it isnt perfect - for example today I was applying it to the attached group photo with a front and back row of people - one gentleman in the back was wearing a brown plaid suit, the AI detected him, but not the suit, causing me to be unable to use the tool in this image.
The next image of the same group however had no such issues. Worked perfectly.
I'm also using a full frame camera with an f/2.8 lens, so theoretically there should be a decent level of depth separation already in the image to provide for analysis (compared to a crop sensor or phone camera).

[Simon S Chen]

Thanks for sharing your photo. In this case, you should try Refine tool to touch up the blur/focus areas. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[Stephen Byerley]

Love the feature ! One thing that I noticed is that in clipped / severely underexposed areas, the blur function will tend to create color smudges (purple in my example).

[chuckhas@gmail.com]

I just tried this on one image and it is fantastic. I do bird photography and applied this feature to one of my images and it created the nicest bokeh ! As an amateur photographer who can't afford the fast f/2.8 lenses which produce this great bokeh, I can use this great feature on many/most of my bird images to produce that beautiful bokeh that we all strive for. Thank you adobe for this great feature!!!

[Noctua]

It would be interesting to have the possibility to deselect or select some areas of the subject.

[Simon S Chen]

You meant the Refine tool in the lens blur UI? Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[Freedman Photography]

An excellent addition to Lightroom chanks

[Jesse33672210trlq]

Thank you so much for this I absolutely love it! Well done devs!

[Jimmy29198263p4bz]

I dunno if it's just me but I'm finding that adjusting the slider for lens blur is just taking too long for the software to catch up. It starts at 50% default and moving it just a little seems to take forever to actually apply the percentage you want.

[simonsaith]

Go to Lightroom Preferences>Performance tab, see if you can turn on Use GPU Acceleration option.

[Irose_57]

Great addition to Lightroom! The only issue I've had is when I apply lens blur syncing the photo gets stuck in LrC. Remove the lens blur and syncs fine. 

[rachelg18636813]

Great tool to the already fabulous LR!  Thank you for always improving your software.  The only thing I have noticed with the blur tool is around hair lines and such it looks a little too "noticable".  When fly aways look cut perfectly around the hairline it is obvious something has been done to the picture that is not natural.  I think it depends on the background of the photo some too.   

[default9yzu2sf4pnuj]

I'd love to see some advanced masking adding to this.
Working on a wide angle photo of a guitarist pounting the neck of the guitar at me.

The AI doesn't recognize the guitar neck as the subject is suppose, making it just as blury as the background 10ft behind them.

Maybe some kind of overlay toggle for us picky people that like to switch it on and off while making

tweaks lol.

All in all a welcome addition, has worked nicely on a number of other photos.

[default9yzu2sf4pnuj]

Ha, the visualize depth didnt show anything at first click. Now I see! lol

[simonsaith]

There is also the Refine tool that you can play with. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[tzurlis]

suppose to be easy, it's the other way around. hard to use.  very slow and stacks the soft. another good idea brought to trash by adobe extremely bad software management, remarkable bad programming and most horrible UI. u are the best company ever in spending mountains of money on the most worse UI and bulky, bad, heavy programming. 

[Schlongkeydonk]

One note, Ive had issues with portraits where the ear has been cut off and blurred out. Seems to do this to every other portrait image even if they are similar in composition. 

[simonsaith]

There is also the Refine tool that you can play with. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[defaultmodmzc25g6af]

Is there a way to mask it? Sometimes the auto detect gets it wrong and the edges are wonky. Would love to be able to mask those edges out of or into the blur as needed. Perhaps I am just not seeing this feature

[simonsaith]

Try out the Refine tool. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[dustin32373309ocr8]

Lots of work to be done on it, but kind of interesting. It's going to be over done for sure, but guess that is the users choice if they want to go all fake bokeh with their images. 

Selections still need pretty major improvements. There is ghosting around the subject and its confusing bird tails, peoples limbs, etc as being in the background when they are not. When you adjust the focal range, its showing that a hand and wrist are way in the background while the rest of the arm is in the foreground. Really weird. I just don't think this is near ready to roll out yet. 

[paulgelso]

Looks Really good and very user friendly! The differences between the lens blur types is barely noticable!

The masking is seamless!! 

[bluehourbill]

Almost worked perfectly on the first image I tried it on. However, it auto masked the background behind the scroll parts of the sign so that section didn't get blurred. It is GPU resource hungry for sure though. It blacked out my screen for a few seconds. Mind you my GPU is over 5 years old and only 2GB. Looking forward to using this in the future. Good stuff Adobe.

[simonsaith]

You could use the Refine tool to touch up the missed part. Checkout Julieanne's nice tutorial video.

[defaultpze1f0bjugyn]

This feature is simply gorgeous. It nails it in many aspects as really looks real, and the options are very intuitive. Great Job! I love that you can choose the type of bokeh you want, beyond its intensity. I love the fact you can previous the field of focus, and to be able to model it from narrow to wide. The result looks realistic, and will solve many issues from photographer who can't afford lenses that open wider than F2,8 aperture. Now if I had one request, the cherry on the top... that would be if the bokeh could offer "lens type" options. People could choose oval flares from say "anamorphic" type of lenses, or overal circular bokeh from say "Helios 44-2" type of lens. Love what you guys do. Keep on !!!