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: 

[Clemgill]

Hi, 

Really significant addition. 

Althohgh sometimes it bugs and adds blurred spots in the middle of a section that should be in focus. Those are very difficult to correct. 

Sometimes also the "Focus" and "Blur" buttons actions are inverted (?) 

Why are you using the word "Cône" in the french translation of "Focus" ?

I would suggest the word "Net" which is the contray of "Flou" ("Blur")

[justing84957839]

Spinning beachball on my Mac. Fans came on, so had to close LR Classic down.

[Clémence33774684i3dx]

Unfortunately, it's been a few weeks since the tool is not working anymore. I cannot even use it...

[Simon S Chen]

Are there any system/GPU driver updates that cause the non-functioning? What do you see? Any errors?

[dr.vijays87505121]

Hi 

I am Dr.Vijay K Shastri from Mumbai, India. I have been using ADOBE Photoshop since 2018 and I have been extremely happy with the post processing results that I have been getting.  I would definitlely give a thumbs up to the Lens Blur feature that you are going to introduce and it woiuld help in fine tuning the background blur and in highlighting the subject better. I am definitely looking forward to using this feature in my wildlife photography for sure.

Thanks and with best wishes

Dr. Vijay K Shastri

[J.33787845fn2c]

It sounds very nice, but it won't load 

[falkh48945833]

Super feature. Did this all by hand, before this arrived. However a function to edit certain areas or use the maks of the subject, you created already would be usefull, as when cranked up to a certain amount it often doesen't get the borders of the subject.

[simonsaith]

Try out the Refine tool in the UI.

[JBoisve]

every time I use 'lens blur' the system is lagging.   I have to restart lightroom and every things is smooth no lagging....but if I click agin in Lens Blur,  again the system starts lagging.

[Thomas Dearie]

I like the tool.
The first thing I looked for was the ability to use one of my masks to exclude the blur.
On many wildlife shots, the app gets confused as to what the subject is, and I've already done some careful masking — I'd like to be able to leverage that work with the background blur tool.

Integrating masks would let me solve issues the app is having trouble with.

[simonsaith]

In such cases, you can use the manual Point/Area focus control to guide Lr on where to focus.

[Robert Kamper]

I found it non-intuitive regarding just what was being blurred and whar wasn't. Didn't care for it, though I suppose it might be useful if it could be used to blur the background after the foreground subject has been identified. The foreground suddenly changed to some bright colors, and so I just dropped it. Nice idea, so-so implementation.

[RGM306]

Lens blur has great potential.  A welcome addition to the tool chest.

[davesleeth]

Well it wouldn't reload for a second try after a quick test on one image. With that, I'd say it was ok, though didn't have enough time to really play with it when I went back to it with a different image.

I can say I'd want this tool as a Brush so I could apply it where I'd like instead of the Ai doing it all. 

Just my quick one try option thought...

Thanks,

Doreen

[simonsaith]

Try follow the instructions in the pinned reply at the top to get your GPU driver updated.

[jesse33803107juyj]

Looks great! I agree that I would love to be able to add this to multiple images at once. 

[BundD]

One feature I think would be helpful.

When I have masked my object, they are very well defined.

Would it be possible to apply the sharpen/unsharpen effect on the masks?

If I have defined a motive or object, they shall be sharp and the rest unsharp.

I think this wouls be very helpful with more difficult objects.

[mattiannone]

Really like how well the tool works and the graph combined with the visualize option give me a lot of control over the result.  Only issue I've had, multiple times now, is making adjustments sometimes causes LR to freeze and / or fully crash.  This will happen if I try to do too much with the tool like, adjust the graph slider a second time too quickly.

[simonsaith]

Please share your system info Lightroom>Help>System Info... and follow the pinned reply at the top. 

[JCRBphoto]

Another poorly implemented feature. As with subject masking it's close but not close enough, the manual retouching required makes the auto mask only a minor help, that the visualize depth so completely obscures the original without providing a transparancy selection like other mask functions plus the system freeze when switching it on and off makes this useless. And just like subject masking the difference between close and perfect is the difference between useful and mostly useless, in the attached picture no amount of slider work could get the selected region to be correct

[paulgelso]

Not sure what this person is doing, but I have none of the problems that he is having with my blur tool! Ir is working perfectly including the masking, etc.! Maybe it’s time for people to start upgrading their OS!!!
I am using this product in camera roll on an M2 Mac with the latest OS and like I said it is working beautifully!
Sent from my iPhone
Paul Gelsobello Studio
245 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
p:212-947-0317
m:917-748-4408
paul@paulgelsobellostudio.com
www.paulgelsobellostudio.com

[JCRBphoto]

What I'm doing is running the feature on the picture in question and getting the terrible output shown in the picture. So it's lovely that whatever you are shooting it happens to work for, but as with pretty much anything I use that involves masking LR sucks at actually getting the edges. Luckly on the images I really care about its being masked to black or used for low res social media. But to try and use this feature for a big print? No chance the edge needs to be good and sharp and the amount of time it would take to do it by hand might as well just get a new lesns for the shot 

[Eric Wessman]

So  far, I am enjoying the effect. I have found that the mask sometimes includes small bits of my subject (like the end of an elephant's tusk or a bird's beak) and they will also get blured. It looks odd and I am hoping that this will be corrected with future versions.

[simonsaith]

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

[lacey32526331zmeq]

Its pretty great but suffers form similar problems as the iphone portrait mode where the smaller, thinner details, like hairs, get pulled into the automatic blur.