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: 

[Sean McCormack]

Ah, thank you. 

[chrish3344790]

I really like using lens blur, I have revisted a couple of imaages to "knock back" the backgrounds a bit, with great effect. If it were possible to improve the fine tuning, by somehow "telling " the software which area is in fact the background, when it gets confused that would help with tricky shots. I have a person walking down a tunnel towards light and a couple of figures at the tunnel entrance, the blur either includes the subject , or excludes the figures at the tunnel exit even though the figure in very much in the foreground, and the figures are at the extreme background.

[Joshua Bury]

You can find a brush tool for making these kinds of corrections to the estimated depth by expanding the "Refine" tools at the bottom of the lens blur panel.

[laadoc]

ther is no bokeh in between arms and body, if the person does not fully fill the photo

[Philip32886729rigq]

Hi unable to load Lens Blur  in Photoshop or Lightroom

[sompols30168408]

I can not use Lens Blur and get the error message as follows:

Something went wrong

There was an unexpected error and your request could not be completed

[kb32901623prft]

looks pretty nice!

[guidov51828264]

I have an image that it just doesnt make a correct selection on. Maybe it is an idea to add a pensel function so you can manualy add and remove peaces that can use more or less blur.

[Joshua Bury]

You can find a brush tool for making corrections to the estimated depth by expanding the "Refine" tools at the bottom of the lens blur panel.

[Volodymyr329024230749]

it seem to work fine

[FinnSa]

Love it, but I'd like to have the amount of noise in the blurred parts matched to the subject. It's quite weird, if the subject is all noise, but the background is perfectly smooth.

[defaultkrjfu9l0olxt]

It simply doesn't work and crashes the program when it does work.  I have a powerhouse of a machine so something as simple as lens blur shouldn't be causing this much trouble.

[Ruurd270091314rcd]

Perfect solution for focus stacking in food/product photography when your camera does not support it. I tried it with a picture taken with high f-stop and created the depth of field just where I wanted it. 

Great addition and easy to use. 

[defaults3lh4emtpasc]

I am sure you are going to make improvements, but this is incredible.  I am very, very impressed and I am a long-time Lightroom user.  Keep up the innovation!

[Judson32264391pxo9]

Works great, except it occasionally blurs stuff in the same depth of field with the subject.

[jacobd67357982]

Works great! Here's an instance where it doesn't

Original and full lens blur included below

 

 

[Jaylive32906027e5we]

I think it works great off the bat. I tried it on an image that was shot with a flash in the dark and I think it seemed to pick up the subjects realy well! Knowing this is the beta version, I think once its finalized and improvements are made, this will be such an amazing tool (already is).

[xrayzzz]

Nice!  I've always had to attempt this manually before, so this is a cool feature.  Seems to work well so far.  Sometimes the edges of the subject look to sharp compared to the background, or the AI doesn't quite select everything I want, but being able to use a brush to add/subtract is very helpful.

[OrtegaPhotography]

A veces tiene problemas cuando el sujeto tiene un sombrero, los bordes del sombrero los desenfoca y parece un "falso desenfoque", de 10 fotos me sucedió solo con 2, pero por lo demás funciona muy bien, me encantan las novedades del nuevo Lightroom mis felicitaciones a todo el grupo de Adobe 👍🏼

[rogerb54077690]

Is it possible to use the brush tool to add or subtract areas of lens blur?

[xrayzzz]

Yes, I think so.

[wfroyce]

Yes, select the "refine" arrow and you can select either focus or blur
and set the brush size

--
*Bill*

[gerblo]

I mostly like what I've seen. Complex edges e.g. in nature can be a bit funky.

The feature request:  Add Saturation slider to lens blur.

[Joshua Bury]

Can you share more detail on your request for a saturation slider?

[daleducatte]

I was checking to see if someone had suggested a saturation slider. Here's why I'd like one (and one for highlights):

I currently use object or subject selection to mask the background of a nature photo -- say, a couple of flowers with some stems and leaves that I want to keep in focus -- and use a combination of texture, sharpness, and noise reduction to soften and blur the background beyond what I captured with the camera. Then I'll decrease highlights and saturation (usually in the -15 to -25 range) because this gives the photo a greater appearance of depth and further differentiates the foreground from the background. It works really well with closeup nature photographs especially, because there are often lots of random, unfocused elements in the background (and blobs of green or brown) that I don't want to be so visually distracting. Decreasing saturation and highlights works well (better than, say, decreasing whites or increasing blacks) because it's more subtle and natural looking. 

To get to a similar place with the new Blur tool, I'd have to use the Blur tool first then create masks separately to reduce saturation and/or highlights just for the background.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be great to do both with just the Blur tool.