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: 

[charliep28988368]

This sh*t cray! Great update. 

Would be nice to have a reference in the focal range to know where the original focus was.

[simonsaith]

You can double-click on the range slider or re-click the subject focus to get to the original default focus.

[MikesAdobe99]

Hello, the early access functionality is a great start.  Two comments:

` If there are people close behind subject, they are not blurred at all...background farther back looks great.  Suggest a "select subject" function that "blacks out" the blur.  More "selective blur."

- Focal range is a good idea, it just needs some tweaking.  I didn't see much differerence in the seclections.  To be fair, I'm really tired and didn't play with it that long.

This will be an awesome feature.

[George3245575918h5]

Great idea but I think when it comes to images with detailed hair you can tell it cuts it off like on an iphone. You can tell its AI.

[George3245575918h5]

Great idea but I think when it comes to images with detailed hair you can tell it cuts it off like on an iphone. You can tell its AI. Here is a sample photo. You can tell on the right hand side the hair. Also the focus was on the nails on purpose to show off the nails. 

[Sarah13242]

Very much enjoyed Lens Blur, and more specifically the ability to customize the depth map.

It would be great if you added the ability to copy and save it as a separate layer in the project, because it would be useful not only for background blurring but also for working with curves, etc. ^_^

[giannic79475945]

Lens Blur looks very good, but the following should be improved:

1. better selection of the blur picture portion

2. faster elaboration time. It is a slow process, I' using a Mac studio and I see the elaboration time increasing, mainly in the passage from picture to picture.

3.  hair or small obects disappier in the process.

in any case is a very interesting tool

[Rene29559849vpwj]

Looks really great at first glance but breaks down with long hair and fur. As long as the subject has neither of those it works pretty well but it can't handle hair and fur well.

[pw4004]

If the background is messy, eg around a bird on grass and sticks, the blur doesn't detect the edge of the bird quite accurately enough but leaves a tiny bit of the background beside the bird sharp - enough to be unusable.  Otherwise and in other situations it's a brilliant function.

[Sussexwolf]

My first impressions are that this is pretty impressive.  Certainly it will help with photos taken with my bridge camera which has a larger depth of field due its smaller sensor.

[henrygrover]

As others have commented, more work on refining how it works around hair would be good - see attached pic.

[defaultw79i85820olv]

This is a great tool, I know it's not perfect, but it makes it so much easier than not having it, it shows me possibilities. A little bit of work here and there but that's what I love about photography! Great stuff for me.

[Mr.Periandro]

I really liked the new feature, but I understand that it should also be a faster feature.

[Inspiring_painter0D45]

Just tried it out in LR on a PSD with a great many layers and works quickly. It does much more than I expected. I agree with suggestions re toggling depth map and filmstrip indicator. I'm wondering if the bokeh shapes can be expanded? I love square 😕

[32572850i6j2]

A paintbrush tool for when the detection software doesn't recognise part of the edge of your subject and needs touching up. To be honest, I'm not sure why you didn't add this as a tab/slider inside the masking menu to give the selection more customizability.

[simonsaith]

There is. Expand the "Refine" collapsible widget in the lens blur UI where you can brush areas that you want to be more in focus or out-of-focus. Checkout Julieanne's video .

 

[Patryk32920445vt77]

Hi, feature looks really promising, however I wold like to add option to lock focal plane position and only change the dept of field around that plane, as a checkbox. This way you could use it in simple quick mode to increase depth or in normal mode where you have more control. 

[wumble]

Nit pick: "apply" makes no sense.  "Start" would be better.

I really like this feature but would like it more if I could apply it in Photoshop on a differeht layer for subsequent revision.

I will only use the first brokah style

[Thomas27569982enky]

auf den ersten Blick sehr gute ergebnisse ...

[erwinf372591]

nice tool to try out, first result are promissing

[BobSmithing]

I just tried this on some soccer pictures. A way to refine what is included/not included would be helpful—something like we can do with masking. I'm not sure how much I like this, though, I expect it will significantly increase my editing time... (humor in case that was not clear). An excellent start!

[simonsaith]

Try use the Point/Area focus control tool to see if it is what you want.

[Jeffrey1956]

Hi. I have found this very good and works very well until i go to use the Add Focus option   I am finding this very slow  and sometimes makes my PC grind to a halt. I dont think this is my system as all other features including the  new updates work perfectly well with no slow down ???

Regards Jeff 

[DonH]

I recommend you allow lens blur to be added to a selection mask (such as Subject) - why?

The new lens blur tools provides controls that let you refine the lens blur - but it's very hard to limit the blur to the equivalent of a Background or Inverted Subject mask.  I can see most of my use of lens blur to be better if connected to a selection mask.  Thank you.

Don

[Leslie32809415qexu]

Initially this appears to be a great option.