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: 

[Ritik34945623kkhl]

nice

[Paul28698697f55m]

Great feature, would like to see a feather feature for the edge so it wouldn't appear so hard and sharp

[rickb-sgu]

Thinking of real world behavior, how would that be useful?  If something is in focus in the foreground, blur from objects in the background doesn't bleed into the foreground object...

[rickb-sgu]

Thinking more on this, I can think of a situation where it would be useful:  Consider an object that is in the foreground, but curves from front to back - maybe a closeup on a large object like a car.  In that case, the blurring would be gradational.  It would be interesting to see how the tool handles that.

[Bijan_91]

It works like magic! I wonder how it' s possible, to create such an accurate depth-map of a shot taken, without any real depth information. Thanks for this awesome feature - with all its pros and cons to photography...

[larrylgreenhill]

I notice that LENS BLUR analyzes the entire image, even if I crop the image. Will LENS BLUR tool ever allow one to analyze an image after it has been cropped? Then it might work better on the cropped image. 

[sumnerb38120]

When the background blur misses a bit how can I make adjustments? 

[PaulTerry]

Press the Blur button and go over the areas which have been missed

[tomf35092362]

is it possible to add lens blur to the sync settings in camera  raw .it would be usefull when a batch of action sport images are taken with a zoom kens such as the canon 100-500 mm lens

[Liam Larnach Photography]

From a distance this tool works really well on portraits, but when you zoom in you can see the edging around hair and even in places where light meets shadows have become distorted

[Fernando35839235rj7x]

Just tried it for the first time and I am amazed! So easy to use. But as the other post said, an indicator in filmstrip as to which images have lens blur applied.

[laxdad93]

I like the Lens Blur. I have been editting a number of ice hockey photos and the tool comes in handy to blur extraneous background artifacts and I can draw focus to the players. As others have said it would be great to have an indicator in the filmstrip.

[jjaylad]

Just a suggestion... pick a label color you aren't using for any specific
purpose and label Lens Blurred images with that.

[criscap]

tout bon

[humbarda96148481]

It is amazing...you folks are super. One thing if it's possible is to add content aware feature when brushing subjects with focus or blur. 

[CPBeyers]

I tried to use the Early Access Lens Blur in LrC on a mask created using the Mask tool and it didn't work, possibly from user error I'd guess. I tried using the Focal Range tool to blur the people in the background, but because the photo was of a small group of people on bleachers with some interlopers/photobombers behind them, the depth range was too shallow. As currently functioning the Lens Blur tool isn't capable of dealing with/differentiating with short distances. However, the blur it generated was impressive and believable.

[mark1894]

I used this on a shot of an eagle landing and it worked well apart from the snow that was kicked up by the eagle, some remained and some disappeared giving a hard edge to where the snow flakes start and stop making them look like a poor AI attempt at snow.  I get that might not be the use case but would be fab if it could decern dust, mud, snow, rain on the same plane as the subject and leave it alone. 

[john hermit]

I'm trying lens blur on a flower photographed in the midst of a field of grass that is the same color as the flower's stem.  The effect is excellent, except for the algorithm's apparent categorization of the thinnest petals as part of the background - which means those flower parts are unnaturally blurred.  The effect needs to have a way to signal that some objects or areas are (or are not) part of the foreground or background, much as one does when masking. 

[john hermit]

I'd retract my own post if I could, but I now see there IS a way to add or subtract from the blurred area (those buttons, "focus" and "blur").   However, when using the "focus" brush, I have found it sometimes spontaneously adds zigzag lines of focus across the photo, as if my mouse (trackball) were locked on (it's not), even as if I'd "painted" across areas where my pointer never traveled.  And these additions do not respond to any Undo command.  This seems like a glitch, anyone else experience this?

[pfried89]

Lens blur is fantastic. I'd love to see the option to change the blur type, especially motion blur. 

[Bentley B]

Can a grey scale mask be made from the focal mask? If so could it be copied and then used in the masking section? If this can't be done can some tone controls be added that will follow the focal mask? The more out of focus the more tone adjustment would be made and add an invert option so the more in focus the more adjustment would be applied. I do like this feature, sure it is not perfect but with the brush to add or subtract and holding the control key while brushing for auto masking is my workflow.

[steveg94201425]

I tried this on a flock of birds (Starlings). It almost looked amazing, but it destroyed the Starling's beaks, so was unusable for my image. Really interested to see how this progresses though.

[ashleyc10358492]

when applying it to birds of prey or just birds if the primary feathers at the wing tips are spread the blur doesnt go between the feathers so it looks odd 

[jacquesm55275436]

Bonjour , c'est une superbe fonction .Continuez vers ce chemin . Felicitation. JM